1 



POEMS 



OF 



Sidney Lanier 



«5D1TED BY HIS WIFE 



With a Memorial ¥Y William Hayes Wajid 



-" Go, trembling song, 



And ctay not long ; oh stay not long; 
Thou'rt only a gray and sober dove. 
But thine eye is faith ai.d thy wing is love." 



NEIV EJJT'TJON 

NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 

1920 



o 






^ 



Copyright, 1884, 1891, 1912, 1916, 1918, by 
MARY D. LANIER 



Vo riplaoe lost oogS 
APR 1 5 m5 




CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Memorial •••xi 

Hymns of the Marshes : 

L Sunrise, 3 -^ 

(The Independent, December, 1882.) 

II. Individuality, xo 

{The Century Magazine, January, 1882.) 

III. Sunset, 13 ^ 

{The Continent, February, 1882.) 

IV. The Marshes of Glynn, 14 ^ 

{The Masque of Poets, 1879.) 

Clover, 19 

{The Independent, 1876.) 

The Waving of the Corn 23 ^ 

{Harper's Magazine, 1877.) 

The Song of the Chattahoochee, ..... 24 
{Scotfs Magazine, 1877.) 

From the Flats, 26 

iLippincotf s Magazine, 1877.) 

The Mocking-Bird, 27 - 

(The Galaxy, August, 1877.) 



iv CONTENTS. 

PAGR 

Tampa Robins, 28 

{Lippincotf s Magazine, 1877.) 

The Crystal, 29 

{The Independent, 1880.) 

The Revenge of Hamish, ....... 33 

{Appletons' Magazine, 1878.) 

To Bayard Taylor, ........ 39 

(Scribner^ s Magazine, March, 1879.) 

A Dedication. To Charlotte Cushman, . . .43 

{Earliest Collected Poems, by Messrs. J. B. Lippincott (2^ 

Co., 1876.) 

To Charlotte Cushman, 44 

{Lippincotfs Magazine, March, 1876.) 

V 

The Stirrup-Cup, 45 

{Scribner''s Magazine, 1877.) 

A Song of Eternity in Time, 46 

(7'he Independent, 1880.) 

Owl against Robin, 47 

{Scribner's Magazine, August, 1880.) 

A Song of the Future, 50 

{Scribner''s Magazine, 1877-78.) 

Opposition, 51 

{Good Company, 1879-80.) 

Rose-Morals, 52 

{Lippincotfs Magazine, May, 1876. ) 

Corn, 53 

{Lippincotfs Magazine, February, 1875.) 

The Symphony 6» 

{Lippincotf s Magazine, June, 1875.) 



CONTENTS. V 

fAGB 

My Springs, .71 

(The Century Magazine, October, 1882.) 

In Absence, 74 

{Lippincolf s Magazine, September, 1875.) 

Acknowledgment, 77 

(Lippincotf s Magazine, November, 1876.) 

Laus Mari^, 80 

(Scribner' s Magazine, 1876.) 

Special Pleading, 81 

(Lip pine ot f s Magazine, January, 1876.) 

The Bee, 83 

(Litpincotf s Magazine, October, 1877.) 

The Harlequin of Dreams, . . -85 

(Lippincotf s Magazine, April, 1878.) 

Street Cries : 

I. Remonstrance, 86 

{The Century Magazine, April, 1883.) 

II. The Ship of Earth 89 

(The Round Table.') 

III. How Love Looked for Hell 89 

(The Century Magazine, March, 1884.) 

IV. Tvranny, 93 

(The Round Table, February, 1868.) 

V. Life and Song, 94 

(The Round Table, September, 1868.) 

VI. To Richard Wagner, 95 

(The Galaxy. November, 1877.) 

VII. A Song of Love, yj 

(The Century Magazine, January, 1884.) 



VI CONTENTS. 

PACK 

To Beethoven, 98 

(The Galaxy, March, 1877.) 

Sin Srrau 9tannette ^alC^^uerbad), o 101 

(1878.) 

To Nannette Falk-Auerbach, 102 

(Baltimore Gazette, 1878.) 

To Our Mocking-Bird 103 ^ 

(The Independent, 1878.) 

The Dove, 105 

(Scribner^ s Magazine, May, 1878.) 

To , WITH A Rose, lob 

(Lippincotf s Magazine, December, 1876.) 

On Huntingdon's "Miranda," 107 

(A'; Y. Evening Post, 1874.) 

Ode to the Johns Hopkins University, . . . 108 

(The University Circular, 1880.) 

To Dr. Thomas Shearer, 112 

Martha Washington, 113 

(The Centennial Court Journal, 1876.) 

Psalm of the West 114 

{^Lippincotf s Magazine, June, 1876.) 

At First. To Charlotte Cushman 139 

(The Independent, 1 883.) 

A Ballad of Trees and the Master 141 -^ 

(The Independent f 1880-81.) 

A Florida Sunday, 142 

(Frajtk Leslie's Swzday Magazine, 1877.) 
To My Class 146 

(The Independent, October, 1884.) 



m 



CONTENTS. VU 

PAGH 

On Violet's Wafers, 147 

(The Indepeudent, October, 1884.) 

Ireland, 148 

{The Art Auto^rnph, 18S0.) 

Under the Cedarcroft Chestnut, 149 

(^Scribner^s Magazuie, 1877-78.) 

An Evening Song 151 

{Lippincotfs Magazine, January, 1877.) 

A Sunrise Song, 152 

On a Palmetto . . . • 153 

Struggle, 154 

Control, 155 

To J. D. H., 150 

Marsh Hymns, 157 

Thou and I, 158 

The Hard Times in Elfland, 159 

{The Christmas Magazine, Ballimore, 1877.) 

DIALECT POEMS. 

A Florida Ghost, 171 

{Appletons' Magazine, 1877-78.) 

Uncle Jim's Baptist Revival Hymn. (Sidney and Clif- 
ford Lanier), . . 175 

{Scribner' s Magazine, 1876.) 

"Nine from Eight," 177 

[The Independent, March, 1884.) 

"Thar's more in the Man than thar is in the Land," 180 
{Georgia Daily, 1869.) 



viii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Jones's Private Argyment, 183 

The Power of Prayer ; or, The First Steamboat up the 
Alabama. (Sidney and Clifford Lanier), . . 185 
(Scribner's Magazine, 1875-76.) 

UN REVISED EARLY POEMS. 

The Jacquerie. A Fragment, 191 

The Golden Wedding, 215 

Strange Jokes, 217 

(The Independent, 1883.) 

Nirvana, 218 

{The SoutJiern Magazme, 1871.) 

The Raven Days, 221 

Our Hells, 222 

Laughter in the Senate, 223 

Baby Charley, 224- 

(LippincoU's Magazine, January, 18S3.) 

A Sea-Shore Gr.ave. To M. J. L. (Sidney .and Clif- 
ford L.A^^ER), 225 

{The Southern Magazine, July, 1871.) 

Souls .ant) Rain-Drops 226 

{Lippincott's Magazine, 18S3.) 

Nilsson, 227 

{The Independent, .\pril, 1883.) 

Night antj Day, 228 

{TJie Independent, July, 18S4.) 

A BiRTHD.AY Song. To S. G., 229 

{Tlie Round Table, 1867.) 

Resurrection, 231 

{Tlie Round Table, October, 1868.) 



m 



CONTENTS. ix 

PAGE 
To 2^2 

The Wedding, 233 

{The Independent, August, 1884.) 

The Palm and the Pine, 234 

Spring Greeting, 235 

The Tourn.\ment, 236 

{TJte Round Table, 1867.) 
The Dying Words of Stonewall Jackson, . , . 240 

To Wilhelmina, 242 

(Tlte Manhattan Magazine, September, 1SS4.) 

WEDDING-HviLN', 243 

{Tlte Independent, August, 18S4.) 

In the Fo.\m, 244 

{The Round Table, 1867.) 

Barnacles, 245 

{The Round Table, 1867.) 

Night, 246 

{The Indepe}ident, May, 1884.) 

JuN'E Dre.\ms, in Jant.^ry, 247 

{The Independent, September. 1SS4.) 
Notes to Poems, 253 

The Centennial Meditation of Coll-mbia. 1776-1S76. 

A Cantata, 259 

Note to the Cantata, 261 



MEMORIAL. 



Because I believe that Sidney Lanier was much 
more than a clever artisan in rhyme and metre ; be- 
cause he will, I think, take his final rank with the 
first princes of American song, I am glad to provide 
this slight memorial. There is sufficient material in 
his letters for an extremely interesting biography, 
which could be properly prepared only by his wife. 
These pages can give but a sketch of his life and 
work. 

Sidney Lanier was born at Macon, Ga., on the 
third of February, 1842. His earliest known ances- 
tor of the name was Jerome Lanier, a Huguenot 
refugee, who was attached to the court of Queen 
Elizabeth, very likely as a musical composer ; and 
whose son, Nicholas, was in high favor with James I. 
and Charles I., as director of music, painter, and 
political envoy ; and whose grandson, Nicholas, held a 
similar position in the court of Charles H. A portrait 
of the elder Nicholas Lanier, by his friend Van Dyck, 
was sold, with other pictures belonging to Charle? 
I., after his execution. The younger Nicholas wa.« 
the first Marshal, or presiding officer, of the Soci- 
ety of Musicians, incorporated at the Restoration, 
" for the improvement of the science and the interest 



Xli MEMORIAL. 

of its professors;" and it is remarkable that four 
others of the name of Lanier were among the few in 
corporators, one of them, John Lanier, very likely 
father of the Sir John Lanier who fought as Major- 
General at the Battle of the Boyne, and fell gloriously 
at Steinkirk along with the brave Douglas. 

The American branch of the family originated as 
early as 1716 with the immigration of Thomas Lanier, 
who settled with other colonists on a grant of land 
ten miles square, which includes the present city of 
Richmond, Va. One of the family, a Thomas La- 
nier, married an aunt of Geor|;e Washington. The 
family is somewhat widely scattered, chiefly in the 
Southern States. 

The father of our poet was Robert S. Lanier, a 
lawyer still living in Macon, Ga. His mother was 
Mary Anderson, a Virginian of Scotch descent, from 
a family that supplied members of the House of Bur- 
gesses of Virginia for many years and in more than 
one generation, and was gifted in poetry, music, and 
oratory. 

His earliest passion was for music. As a child he 
learned to play, almost without instruction, on every 
kind of instrument he could find ; and while yet a 
boy he played the flute, organ, piano, violin, guitar, 
and banjo, especially devoting himself to the flute 
in deference to his father, who feared for him the 
powerful fascination of the violin. For it was the 
violin-voice that, above all others, commanded his 
soul. He has related that during his college days it 
would sometimes so exalt him in rapture, that pres- 
ently he would sink from his solitary music-worship 
into a deep trance, thence to awake, alone, on the 
floor of his room, sorely shaken in nerve. 



MEMORIAL. XlU 

In after years more than one listener remarked the 
strange violin effects which he conquered from the 
flute. His devotion to music rather alarmed than 
pleased his friends, and while it was here that he first 
discovered that he possessed decided genius, he for 
some time shared the early ncjtion of his parents, that 
it was an unworthy pursuit, and he rather repressed 
his taste. He did not then know by what inheritance 
it had come to him, nor how worthy is the art. 

At the age of fourteen he entered the sopho- 
more class of Oglethorpe College, an institution 
under Presbyterian control near Midway, Ga., which 
had not vitality enough to survive the war. He grad- 
uated in i860, at the age of eighteen, with the first 
honors of his class, having lost a year during which 
he took a clerkship in the Macon post-office. At least 
one genuine impulse was received in this college life, 
and that proceeded from Professor James Woodrow, 
who was then one of Sidney's teachers, and who has 
since been connected with the University and Theo- 
logical Seminary in Columbia, S. C. During the 
last weeks of his life Mr. Lanier stated that he owed 
to Professor Woodrow the strongest and most valu- 
able stimulus of his youth. Immediately on his grad- 
uation he was called to a tutorship in the college, 
which position he held until the outbreak of the 
war. 

And here, with some hesitation, I record, as a true 
biography requires, the development of his conscious- 
ness of possessing real genius. One with this gift 
has a right to know it, just as others know if they 
possess talent or shiftiness of resource. While we 
do not talk so much of genius now as we did a 
generation ago, we can yet recognize the differ 



Xiv MEMORIAL. 

encc between the fervor of that divine birth and the 
cantering of the livery Pegasus forth and back, 
along the vulgar boulevards over which facile talent 
rides his daily hack. Only once or twice, in his own 
private note-book, or in a letter to his wife when it 
was needful, in sickness and loneliness, to strengthen 
her will and his by testifying his own deepest con- 
sciousness of power, did he whisper the assurance of 
his strength. But he knew it, and she knew it, and 
it gave his will a peace in toil, a sun-lit peace, not- 
withstanding sickness, or want, or misapprehension, 
calm above the zone of clouds. 

As I have said, his genius he first fully discovered in 
music. I copy from his pencilled college note-book 
what cannot have been written after he was eighteen 
years old. The boy had been discussing the question 
with himself how far his inclinations were to be re- 
garded as indicating his best capacities and his duties, 
tie says : 

" The point which I wish to settle is merely, by 
what method shall I ascertain what I am fit for, as 
■preliminary to ascertaining God's will with reference 
to me , or what my inciinatioiis are, as preliminary 
to ascertaining what my capacities are, that is, what 
I am fit for. I am more than all perplexed by 
this fact, that the prime inclination, that is, natural 
bent (which I have checked, though) of my nature 
is to music ; and for that I have the greatest talent 
indeed, not boasting, for God gave it me, I have 
an extraordinary musical talent, and feel it within 
me plainly that I could rise as high as any com- 
poser. But I cannot bring myself to believe that I 
was intended for a musician, because it seems so small 
a business in comparison with other things which, it 
seems to me, I might do. Question here, What is 
the province of music in the economy of the world ^ ^ 



MEMORIAL. XV 

Similar aspirations he felt at this early age, prob> 
ably eighteen, for grand literary labor, as the same 
note-book would bear witness. We see here the 
boy talking to himself, a boy who had found in him- 
self a standard above anything in his fellows. 

The breaking out of the war summoned Sidney 
Lanier from books to arms. In April, 1861, he en- 
listed in the Confederate Army, with the Macon Vol- 
unteers of the Second Georgia Battalion, the first 
military organization which left Georgia for Vir- 
ginia. From his childhood he had had a military 
taste. Even as a small boy he had raised a company 
of boys armed with bows and arrows, and so well did 
he drill them that an honored place was granted 
them in the military parades of their elders. Having 
volunteered as a private at the age of nineteen, he re- 
mained a private till the last year of the war. Three 
times he was offered promotion and refused it because 
it would separate him from his younger brother, who 
was his companion in arms, as their singularly ten- 
der devotion would not allow them to be parted. The 
first year of service in Virginia was easy and pleasant, 
Hnd he spent his abundant leisure in music and the 
study of German, French, and Spanish. He was in 
the battles of Seven Pines, Drewry's Bluffs, and the 
seven days' fighting about Richmond, culminating in 
the terrible struggle of Malvern Hill. After this 
campaign he was transferred, with his brother, to the 
signal service, the joke among his less fortunate com- 
panions being that he was selected because he could 
play the flute. His headquarters were now for a 
short period at Petersburg, where he had the advan- 
tage ot a small local library, but where he began to 
feel the premonitions of that fatal disease, consump 



XVi MEMORIAL. 

tion, against which he battled for fifteen years. The 
regular full inspirations required by the flute prob- 
ably prolonged his life. In 1863 his detachment was 
mounted and did service in Virginia and North Caro- 
lina. At last the two brothers were separated, it 
coming in the duty of each to take charge of a vessel 
which was to run the blockade. Sidney's vessel was 
captured, and he was for five months in Point Look- 
out prison, until he was exchanged (with his flute, 
for he never lost it), near the close of the war. Those 
were very hard days for him, and a picture of them 
is given in his " Tiger Lilies," the novel which he 
wrote two years afterward. It is a luxuriant, un- 
pruned work, written in haste for the press with- 
in the space of three weeks, but one which gave 
rich promise of the poet. A chapter in the middle 
of the book, introducing the scenes of those four 
years of struggle, is wholly devoted to a remarkable 
metaphor, which becomes an allegory and a sermon, 
in which war is pictured as " a strange, enormous, 
terrible flower," which "the early spring of 1861 
brought to bloom besides innumerable violets and 
jessamines." He tells how the plant is grown ; what 
arguments the horticulturists give for cultivating it ; 
how Christ inveighed against it, and how its shades 
are damp and its odors unhealthy ; and what a fine 
specimen was grown the other day in North America 
by " two wealthy landed proprietors, who combined 
all their resources of money, of blood, of bones, ol 
tears, of sulphur, and what not to make this the 
grandest specimen of modern horticulture." *' It is 
supposed by some," says he, " that seed of this Amer- 
ican specimen (now dead) yet remains in the land ; bul 
as for this author (who, with many friends, suffered 



MEMORIAL. xvil 

from the unhealthy odors of the plant), he could find 
it in his heart to wish fervently that this seed, if there 
be verily any, might perish in the germ, utterly out 
of sight and life and memory, and out of the remote 
hope of resurrection, forever and ever, no matter in 
whose granary they are cherished ! " Through those 
four years, though earnestly devoted to the cause, and 
fulfilling his duties with zeal, his horror of war grew 
to the end. He had entered it in a " crack " regi- 
ment, with a dandy uniform, and was first encamped 
near Norfolk, where the gardens, with the Northern 
market hopelessly cut off, were given freely to the 
soldiers, who lived in every luxury; and every man 
had his sweetheart in Norfolk. But the tyranny 
and Christl' ssness of war oppressed him, though he 
loved the free life in the saddle and under the stars. 

In February, 1865, he w^as released from Point Look- 
out and undertook the weary return on foot to 
his home in Georgia, with the twenty-dollar gold 
piece which he had in his pocket when captured, and 
which was returned to him, Avith his other little ef- 
fects, when he was released. Of course lie had the 
flute, which he had hidden in his sleeve when he en- 
tered the prison, and which had earned him some 
comforts. He reached home March 15th, with his 
strengt'; utterly exhausted. There followed six weeks 
of deS|.'er?.te illness, and just as he began to recover 
from it his beloved mother died of consumption. He 
himself arose from his sick-bed with pronounced 
congestion of one lung, but found relief in two 
months of out-of-door life with an uncle at Point 
Clear. M"bile Bay. From December, 1865, to April 
1867, h'' filled a clerkship in Montgomery, Ala., 
and in ' le next month made his first visit to New 



xviil MEMORIAL. 

York on the business of publishing his "Tiger 
Lilies," written in April. In September, 1867, he 
took charge of a country academy of nearly a hun- 
dred pupils in Prattville, Ala., and was married in 
December of the same year to Miss Mary Day 
daughter of Charles Day, of Macon. 

To the years before Mr. Lanier's marriage belong a 
dozen poems included in this volume. Two of them 
are translations from the German made during the 
war ; the others are songs and miscellaneous poems, 
full ol flush and force, but not yet motdded by those 
laws of art of whose authority he had hardly become 
conscious. His access to books was limited, and 
he expressed himself more with music than with 
literature, taking down the notes of birds, and writ- 
ing music to his own songs or those of Tennyson. 

In January, 1868, the next month after his marriage, 
he suffered his first hemorrhage from the lungs, and 
returned in May to Macon, in very low health. Here 
he remained, studying and afterward practising law 
with his father, until December, 1872. During this 
period there came, in the spring and summer of 1870, 
a more alarming decline with settled cough. He 
went for treatment to New York, where he remained 
two months, returning in October greatly improved 
and strong in hope ; but again at home he lostgroimd 
steadily. He was now fairly engaged in the brave 
struggle against consumption, which could have but 
ine end. So precarious already was his health that 
a change of residence was determined on, and in 
December, 1872, he went to San Antonio, Texas, in 
search of a permanent home there, leaving his wife 
md children meanwhile at Macon. But the climate did 
Qot prove favorable and hu returned in April, 1873 



MEMORIAL. XI3» 

During these five years a sense of holy obligation, 
based on the conviction that special talents had been 
given him, and that the time might be short, rested 
upon Lanier, until it was impossible to resist it longer. 
He felt himself called to something other than a 
country attorney's practice. It was the compulsion 
of waiting utterance, not yet enfranchised. From 
Texas he wrote to his wife : 

" Were it not for some circumstances which make 
such a proposition seem absurd in the highest degree, 
I would tliink that I am shortly to die, and that my 
spirit hath been singing its swan-song before dissolu- 
tion. All day my soul hath been cutting swiftly into 
the great space of the subtle, unspeakable deep, 
driven by wind after wind of heavenly melody. The 
very inner spirit and essence of all wind-songs, bird- 
songs, passion-songs, folk-songs, country songs, sex- 
songs, soul-songs and body-songs hath blown upon 
me in quick gusts like the breath of passion, and 
sailed me into a sea of vast dreams, whereof each 
wave is at once a vision and a melody." 

Now fully determined to give himself to music and 
literature so long as he could keep death at bay, he 
sought aland of books. Taking liis flute and his pen 
for sword and staff, he turned his face northward. 
After visiting New York he made his home in Balti- 
more, December, 1873, under engagement as first 
flute for the Peabody Symphony Concerts. 

With his settlement in Baltimore begins a story of 
as brave and sad a struggle as the history of genius 
records. On the one hand was the opportunity for 
study, and the full consciousness of power, and a will 
never subdued ; and on the other a body wasting 
with consumption, that must be forced to task beyond 
^ts strength not merely to express the thoughts oi 



XX MEMORIAL. 

beauty which strove for utterance, but from the ne- 
cessity of providing bread for his babes. His fathei 
would have had him return to Macon, and settle down 
with him in business and share his income, but that 
would have been the suicide of every duty and am 
bition. So he wrote from Baltimore to his father. 
November 29, 1873 : 

" I have given your last letter the fullest and mosi 
careful consideration. After doing so I feel sure that 
Macon is not the place for me. If you could taste 
the delicious crystalline air, and the champagne 
breeze that I've just been rushing about in, I am 
equally sure that in point of climate you would agree 
with me that my chance for life is ten times as great 
here as in Macon. Then, as to business, why should 
I, nay, how can I, settle myself down to be a third-rate 
struggling lawyer for the balance of my little life, as 
long as there is a certainty almost absolute that I can 
do some other thing so much better? Several persons, 
from whose judgment in such matters there can be 
no appeal, have told me, for instance, that I am the 
greatest flute-player in the world ; and several others, 
of equally authoritative judgment, have given me an 
almost equal encouragement to work with my pen. 
(Of course I protest against the necessity which 
makes me write such things about myself. I only do 
so because I so appreciate the love and tenderness 
which prompt you to desire me with you that I will 
make the fullest explanation possible of my course, 
out of reciprocal honor and respect for the motives 
which lead you to think differently from me.) My 
dear father, think how, for twenty years, through 
poverty, through pain, through weariness, through 
sickness, through the uncongenial atmosphere of a 
farcical college and of a bare army and then of an 
exacting business life, through all tlie discouragement 
of being wholly imacquainted with literary people 
and literary ways — I say, think how, in spite of all 
these depressing circumstances, and of a thousand 



MEMORIAL. XXI 

more which I could enumerate, these two figures 
of music and of poetry have steadily kept in my heart 
so that I could not banish them. Does it not seem 
to you as to me, that I begin to have the right to 
enroll myself among the devotees of these two sub- 
lime arts, after having followed them so long and so 
humbly, and through so much bitterness ?" 

What could his father do but yield ? And what 
could he do during the following vears of his son's fight 
for standing-room on the planet but help ? But 
for that help, generously given by his father and 
brother, as their ability allowed, at the critical times 
of utter prostration, the end would not have been 
long delayed. For the little that was necessary to 
give his household a hvimble support it was not easy 
for the most strenuous young author to win by his 
pen in the intervals between his hemorrhages. He 
asked for very little, only the supply of absolute ne- 
cessities, what it would be easy for a well man to earn, 
but what it was very hard for a man to earn scarce 
able to leave his bed, dependent on the chance in- 
come had from poems and articles in magazines that 
would take them, or from courses of lectures in 
schools. Often for months together he could do no 
\,'or]:. He was driven to Texas, to Florida, to Penn- 
sylvania, to North Carolina, to try to recover health 
from pine breaths and clover blossoms. Supported 
by the implicit faith of one heart, which fully believed 
in his genius, and was willing to wait if he could 
only find his opportunity, his courage never failed. 
He still kept before himself first his ideal and his 
mission, and he longed lo live that he might accom- 
plish them. It must have been in such a mood that, 
soon after coming to Baltimore, he wrote to his wife 
who was detained in the South : 



xxii MEMORIAL. 

•' So many great ideas for Art are born to me each 
day, I am swept away into the land of All-Delight by 
their strenuous sweet whirlwind ; and I find within 
myself such entire, yet humble, confidence of possess- 
ing every single element of power to carry them all 
out, save the little paltry sum of money that would 
suffice to keep us clothed and fed in the meantime. 

" I do not understand this." 

Lanier's was an unknown name, and he would write 
only in obedience to his own sense of art, and he did 
not fit his wares to the taste of those who buy verse. 
It was to comfort his wife, in this period of greatest 
uncertainty whether he had not erred in launching in 
the sea of literature, that he wrote again a letter of 
frankest confession : 

**I will make tc thee a little confession of faith, 
telling thee, mj- dearer self, in words, what I do not 
say to my not-so- dear-self except in more modest 
feeling. 

" Know, then, that disappointments were inevita- 
ble, and will still come u:itil I have fought the bat- 
tle which every great artist has had to fight since 
time began. This — dimly felt while I was doubtful 
of my wn vocation and powers — is clear as the sun 
o me now that I knoiv, through the fiercest tests of 
life, that I am in soul, and shall be in life and utter- 
ance, a great poet. 

" The philosophy of my disappointments is, that 
there is so much cleverness standing betwixt me and 
the public . . . Richard Wagner is sixty years 
old and over, and one-half of the most cultivated ar- 
tists of the most cultivated art-land, quoad music, still 
think him an absurdity. Says Schumann in one of 
his letters : * The publishers will not listen to me for 
a moment ' ; and dost thou not remember Schubert, 
and Richter, and John Keats, and a sweet host more ? 

" Now this is written because I sit here in my room 
daily, and picture thee picturing me worn, and troub 



MEMORIAL. xxlil 

led, or disheartened ; and because I do not wish thee 
to think up any groundless sorrow in thy soul. Of 
course I have my keen sorrows, momentarily more 
keen than I would like any one to know ; but I 
tliank God that in a knowledge of Him and of my- 
self which Cometh to me daily in fresh revelations, I 
have a steadfast firmament of blue, in which all clouds 
S(Jon dissolve. I have wanted to say this several times 
of late, but it is not easy to bring one's self to talk so 
of one's self, even to one's dearer self. 

" Have then ... no fears nor anxieties in my 
behalf ; look upon all my disappointments as mere 
witnesses that art has no enemy so unrelenting as 
cleverness, and as rough weather that seasons timber. 
It is of little consequence whether /fail ; the /in the 
matter is a small business : * Que inon nom soit fl'tri, 
que la France soit libre ! ' quoth Danton ; which is to 
say, interpreted by my environment : Let my name 
perish — the poetry is good poetry and the music is 
good music, and beauty dieth not, and the heart that 
needs it will find it." 

Having now given sacredly to art what vital forces 
his will could command, he devoted himself, with an 
intense energy, to the study of Englisli literature, 
making himself a master of Anglo-Saxon and early 
English texts, and pursuing the study down to our 
own times. He read freely, also, and with a scholar's 
nice eagerness, in further fields of study, but all with 
a view to gathering the stores which a full man migh' 
draw from in the practice of poetic art ; for he had 
that large compass which sees and seeks truths in 
various excursions, and no field of history, or philol- 
ogy, or philosophy, or science found him unsympa- 
thetic. The opportunity for these studies opened a 
new era m his development, while we begin to find 
a crystallization of that theory of formal verse wliich 
he adopted, and a growing power to master 3t. To 



XXiV MEMORIAL. 

this artistic side of poetry he gave, from this time 
very special study, until he had formulated it in hi? 
lectures in the Johns Hopkins University, and in hi? 
volume " The Science of English Verse." 

But from this time the struggle against his fata' 
disease was conscious and constant. In May, 1874, 
he visited Florida under an engagement to write a 
book for distribution by a railroad company. Two 
months of the summer were spent with his family at 
Sunnyside, Ga., where " Corn " was written. This 
poem, published in Lippincotf s Magazine, was much 
copied, and made him known to many admirers. No 
one of these was of so much value to him as Bayard 
Taylor, at whose suggestion he was chosen to write 
the cantata for the opening of the Centennial Expo- 
sition at Philadelphia, and with whom he carried on 
a correspondence so long as Mr. Taylor lived. To 
Mr. Taylor he owed introductions of value to other 
writers, and for his sympathy and aid his letters prove 
tliat he felt very grateful. In his first letter to Mr. 
Taylor, written August 7, 1875, he says: 

" I could never describe to you what a mere 
drought and famine my life has been, as regards that 
multitude of matters which I fancy one absorbs when 
one is in an atmosphere of art, or when one is in con- 
versational relation with men of letters, with travel- 
lers, with persons who have either seen, or written, 
or done large things. Perhaps you know that, with 
us of the younger generation in the South since the 
ivar, pretty much the whole of life has been merely 
not dying." 

The selection of Mr. Lanier to write the Centennial 
Cantata first brought his name into general notice ; 
but its publication, in advance of the music by Dud- 



MEMORIAL. XXV 

ley Buck, was the occasion of an immense amount of 
ridicule, more or less good-humored. It was written 
by a musician to go with music under the new rela- 
tions of poetry to music brought about by the great 
modern development of the orchestra, and was not to 
be judged without its orchestral accompaniment. The 
criticism it received pained our poet, but did not at 
all affect his faith in his theories of art. To his father 
he wrote from New York, May 8, 1876 : 

" My experience in the varying judgments given 
about poetry . . . has all converged upon one 
solitary principle, and the experience of the artist in 
all ages is reported by history to be of precisely tlie 
same direction. That principle is, that the artist shall 
put forth, humbly and lovingly, and without bitter- 
ness against opposition, the very best and highest 
that is within him, utterly regardless of contemporary 
criticism. What possible claim can contemporary 
criticism set up to respect — that criticism which cruci- 
fied Jesus Christ, stoned Stephen, hooted Paul for a 
madman, tried Luther for a criminal, tortured Galileo, 
bound Columbus in chains, drove Dante into a hell 
of exile, made Shakspere write the sonnet, 'When 
in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,' gave Milton 
five pounds for ' Paradise Lost,' kept SamuelJohnson 
cooling his heels on Lord Chesterfield's doorstep, 
reviled Shelley as an unclean dog, killed Keats, 
cracked jokes on Gliick, Schubert, Beethoven, Ber- 
lioz, and Wagner, and committed so many other im- 
pious follies and stupidities that a thousand letters 
like this could not suffice even to catalogue them ? " 

Since first coming to the North in September, 1873, 
Mr. Lanier had been separated from his family. The 
two happy months with them after his visit to Florida 
was followed by several other briefer visits. The 
winters of 1074-75 and 1875-76 found him still in Bal 



xxvi MEMORIAL. 

timore, playing at the Peabody, pursuing his studies 
and writing the *' Symphony," the " Psalm of the 
West," the "Cantata," and some shorter poems, with 
a series of prose descriptive articles for Lippincotfs 
Magazine. In the summer of 1876 he called his 
family to join him at West Chester, Pa. This was au- 
thorized by an engagement to write the Life of Char- 
lotte Cushman. The work was begun, but the en- 
gagement was broken two months later, owing to the 
illness of the friend of the family who was to provide 
the material from the mass of private correspondence. 

Following this disappointment a new cold was in- 
curred, and his health became so much impaired that 
in November the physicians told him he could not 
expect to live longer than May, unless he sought 
a warmer climate. About the middle of December 
he started with his wife for the Gulf coast, and visited 
Tampa, Fla., gaining considerable benefit from the 
mild climate. In April he ventured North again, 
vurrying through the spring with his friends in 
ireorgia ; and, after a summer with his own family 
in Chadd's Ford, Pa,, a final move was ventured in 
October to Baltimore as home. Here he resumed his 
old place in the Peabody orchestra, and continued to 
play there for three winters. 

The Old English studies which he had pursued 
with such deep delight, he now put to use in a course 
of lectures on Elizabethan Verse, given in a private 
parlor to a class of thirty ladies. This was fol- 
lowed by a more ambitious "Shakspere Course" of 
lectures in the smaller hall of the Peabody Institute. 
The undertaking was immensely cheered on and 
greatly praised, but was a financial failure. It opened 
•:he way, however, to one of the chiefest delights o 



MEMORIAL. Xxvii 

iiis life, his appointment as lecturer on English 
literature for the ensuing year at the Johns Hopkins 
University. After some correspondence on the sut> 
ject with President Gilman, he received notice on 
his birthday, 1879, of his appointment, with a salary 
attached (it may be mentioned), which gave him the 
first income assured in any year since his marriage. 
This stimulated him to new life, for he was now barely 
able to walk after a severe illness and renewed hem- 
orrhage. 

The last two years had been more fruitful in verse 
than any that had gone before, as he had now ac- 
quired confidence in his view of the principles of art. 
In 1875 he had written : 

"In this little song [* Special Pleading'] I have be- 
gun to dare to give myself some freedom in my own 
peculiar style, and have allowed myself to treat 
words, similes, and metres with such freedom as I 
desired. The result convinces me that I can do so 
now safely." 

Among his poems of this period may be men- 
tioned "A Song of the Future," "The Revenge of 
Hamish," and — what are excellent examples of the 
kind of art of which he had now gained command 
— "The Song of the Chattahoochee," and "A Song 
of Love." It was at this time that he wrote " The 
Marshes of Glynn," his most ambitious poem thus 
far, and one which he intended to follow with a series 
of " Hymns of the Marshes," which he left inc{mi 
plete. 

The summer of 1879 was spent at Rockingham 
Springs, Va., and here, in six weeks, was begun and 
finished his volume, "Science of English Verse." 
\nother severe illness prostrated him in September 



XXviii MEMORIAL. 

but the necessity of work allowed no time for such 
distractions. In October he opened three lecture 
courses in young ladies' schools ; and through the 
winter, notwithstanding a most menacing illness 
about January ist, he was in continuous rehearsaljt 
and concerts at the Peabody, and besides miscella 
neous writings and studies, gave weekly ten lectures 
upon English literature, two of them public at the 
University, two to University classes, and the remain- 
ing six at private schools. The University public 
lectures upon English Verse, more especially Shak- 
spere's, in part contained, and in part were intro- 
ductory to, " The Science of English Verse." 

The final consuming fever opened in May, 1880. 
In July he went with Mrs. Lanier and her father to 
West Chester, Pa., where a fourth son was born in 
August. Unable to bear the fall climate, he re- 
turned, alone, early in September to his Baltimore 
home. 

This winter brought a hand-to-hand battle for life. 
In December he came to the very door of death. Be- 
fore February he had essayed the open air to test 
himself for his second University lecture course. His 
improvement ceased on that first day of exposure. 
Nevertheless, by April he had gone through the 
twelve lectures (there were to have been twenty), which 
were later published under the title " The English 
Novel." A few of the earlier lectures he penned 
himself ; the rest he was obliged to dictate to his wife. 
With the utmost care of himself, going in a closed 
carriage and sitting during his lecture, his strength 
was so exhausted that the struggle for breath in the 
carriage on his return seemed each time to threaten the 
end. Those who heard him listened with a sort oi 



MEMORIAL. XXIX 

fascinated terror, as in doubt whether the hoarded 
breath would suffice to the end of the hour. 

It was in December of this winter, when too feeble 
to raise his food to his mouth, with a fever temper- 
ature of 104 degrees, that he pencilled his last and 
greatest poem, "Sunrise," one of his projected series 
of the " Hymns of the Marshes." It seemed as if he 
were in fear that he would die with it imuttered. 

At the end of April, 188 1, he made his last visit to 
New York, to complete arrangements with Charles 
Scribner's Sons for the publication of other books of 
the King Arthur series. But in a day or two aggra- 
vated illness compelled his wife to join him, and his 
medical adviser pronounced tent-life in a pure, high 
climate to be the last hope. His brother Clifford was 
summoned from Alabama to assist in carrying out 
the plans for encamping near Asheville, N. C, whither 
the brothers went soon after the middle of May. By 
what seemed a hopeful coincidence he was tendered 
a commission to write an account of the region in a 
railroad interest, as he had done six years before with 
Florida. This provided a monthly salary, which was 
to be the dependence of himself and family. The 
materials for this book were collected, and the book 
thoroughly shaped in the author's mind when July 
ended ; but his increasing anguish kept him from 
dictating, often from all speech for hours, and he 
carried the plan away with him. 

A site was chosen on the side of Richmond Hill, 
three miles from Asheville. Clififord returned to 
Alabama, after seeing the tents pitched and floored, 
and Mrs. Lanier came with her infant to take her 
piace as nurse for the invalid. Early in July Mr. 
Lanier the father, with his wife, joined them in the 



XXX MEMORIAL. 

encampment. As the passing weeks brought no im 
provement to the sufferer he started, August 4th, on 
a carriage journey across the mountains with his wife, 
to test the climate of Lynn, Polk County, N. C 
There a deadly illness attacked him. No return 
was possible, and Clifford was summoned by '.ele 
graph, and assisted his father in removing the en 
campment to Lynn. Deceived by hope, and pressed 
by business cares, Clifford went home August 24th, 
and the father and his wife five days later, expect- 
ing to return soon. Mrs. Lanier's own words, as 
written in the brief "annals" of his life furnished 
me, will tell the end : 

"We are left alone " (August 29th) "with one an- 
other. On the last night of the summer comes a 
change. His love and immortal will hold off the de- 
stroyer of our summer yet one more week, until the 
forenoon of September 7th, and then falls the frost, 
and that unfaltering will renders its supreme sub- 
mission to the adored will of God." 

So the tragedy ended, the manly struggle carried 
on with indomitable resolution against illness and 
want and care. Just when he seemed to have con- 
quered success enough to assure him a little leisure 
to write his poems, then his feeble but resolute hold 
upon earth was exhausted. What he left behind 
him was written with his life-blood. High above all 
the evils of the world he lived in a realm of ideal 
serenity, as if it were the business of life to conquer 
difficulties. 

This is not the place for an essay on the genius of 
Sidney Lanier. It is enough to call attention to some 
marked points in his character and work. 

He had more than Milton's love for music. He 



MEMORIAL. XXXi 

sung like a bard to the accompaniment of a harp. 
He Hved in sweet sounds : forever conscious of a 
ceaseless flow of melody which, if resisted for awhile 
by business occupations, would swell again in its nat- 
ural current and break at his bidding into audible 
music. 

We have the following recognition of his genius 
from Asger Hamerik, his Director for six years in 
the Peabody Symphony Orchestra of Baltimore : 

" To him as a child in his cradle Music was given : 
the heavenly gift to feel and to express himself in 
tones. His human nature was like an enchanted in- 
strument, a magic flute, or the lyre of Apollo, need- 
ing but a breath or a touch to send its beauty out into 
the world. It was indeed irresistible that he should 
turn with those poetical feelings which transcend 
language to the penetrating gentleness of the flute, 
or the infinite passion of the violin ; for there was an 
agreement, a spiritual correspondence between his 
nature and theirs, so that they mutually absorbed 
and expressed each other. In his hands the flute no 
longer remained a mere material instrument, but was 
transformed into a voice that set heavenly harmonic? 
into vibration. Its tones developed colors, warmth, 
and a low sweetness of unspeakable poetry ; they 
were not only true and pure, but poetic, allegoric as 
it were, suggestive of the depths and heights of 
being and of the delights which the earthly ear never 
hears and the earthly eye never sees. No doubt his 
firm faith in these lofty idealities gave him the power 
to present them to our imaginations, and thus by the 
aid of the higher language of Music to inspire others 
with that sense of beauty in which he constantly dwelt. 

'• His conception of music was not reached by an 
analytic study of note by note, but was intuitive and 
spontaneous ; like a woman's reason : he felt it so, 
because he felt it so, and his delicate perception re 
quired no more logical form of reasoning. 



XXXII MEMORIAL. 

"His playing appealed alike to the musically learned 
and to the unlearned — for he would magnetize the 
listener ; but the artist felt in his performance the 
superiority of the momentary living inspiration to all 
the rules and shifts of mere technical scholarship. 
His art was not only the art of art, but an art above 
art. 

** I will never forget the impression he made on me 
when he played the flute-concerto of Emil Hartmann 
at a Peabody symphony concert, in 1878 : his tall, 
handsome, manly presence, his flute breathing noble 
sorrows, noble joys, the orchestra softly responding. 
The audience was spellbound. Such distinction, 
such refinement ! He stood, the master, the genius." 

In the one novel which he wrote at the age of 
twenty-five, he makes one of his characters say : 

*'To make a home out of a household, given the raw 
materials — to wit, wife, children, a friend or two, and 
a house — two other things are necessary. These are 
a good fire and good music. And inasmuch as we 
can do without the fire for half the year, I may say 
music is the one essential." " Late explorers say they 
have found some nations that have no God ; but I 
have not read of any that had no music." "Music 
means harmony, harmony means love, love means- 
God ! " 

The theoretical relation between music and poetry 
would hardly have attracted his study had it not been 
that his mind was as truly philosophically and scien- 
tifically accurate, as it was poetically sensuous and 
imaginative. In a letter to Mr. E. C. Stedman he 
complained that " in all directions the poetic art was 
suffering from the shameful circumstance that criti- 
cism was without a scientific basis for even the most 
elementary of its judgments." 

Although the work was irksome to him, he could 



MEMORIAL. XXX iil 

not go on writing at hap-hazard, trusting to his own 
mere taste to decide what was good, until he had 
settled for himself scientifically what are the laws of 
poetical construction. This accounts for his exposi- 
tion of the laws of beauty in that unique work, " The 
Science of English Verse," which w-as based on Dante's 
thought, "The best conceptions cannot be save where 
science and genius are." The book is chiefly taken 
up with a discussion of rhythm and tone-color in 
verse ; and it is well within the truth to say that it is 
the most complete and thorough original investiga- 
tion of the formal element in poetry in existence. 
The rhythm he treated as the marking of definite time 
measurements, which could be indicated by bars in 
musical notation, having their regular time and their 
regular number of notes, with their proper accent. 
To this time measurement Mr. Lanier gave the pre- 
eminence which Coleridge and other writers have 
given to accent. He conceived of a line of poetry as 
consisting of a definite number of bars (or feet), each 
bar containing, in dactylic metre, three equal " eighth 
notes," of which the first is accented, or in iambic 
metre (which has the same "triple" time), of one 
"eighth note," and one "quarter note," with the 
accent on the second. Thus the accented syllable is 
not necessarily " longer " than the unaccented, except 
as the rhythm happens to make it so. This idea is 
very fully developed and wnth great wealth of curious 
Old English illustrations. Under the designation of 
" tone-color " he treats very suggestively of rhyme, 
alliteration, and vowel and consonant distribution, 
slaowing how the recurrence of euphonic vowels and 
consonants secures that rich variety of tone-color 
which music gives in orchestration. The work thus 



XXXIV MEMORIAL. 

breaks away from the classic grammarian's tablea 
of trochees and anapaests, and discusses the forms 
of poetry in the terms of music ; and of both tone- 
color and of rhythm he would say, in the words of 
old King James, " the very touch-stone whereof is 
music." 

Illustrations of these technical beauties of musical 
rhythm, and vowel and consonant distribution, abound 
in Lanier's poetry. Such is the " Song of the Chat- 
tahoochee," which deserves a place beside Tennyson's 
" Brook." It strikes a higher key, and is scarcely 
less musical. Such passages are numerous in his 
" Sunrise on the Marshes," as in the lines beginning, 

"Not slower than majesty moves," 
or the other lines beginning, 

" Oh, what if a sound should be made ! " 

These investigations in the science of verse bore 
their fruit especially in the poems written during the 
last three or four years of his life, when his sense of 
the solemn sacredness of Art became more profound, 
and he acquired a greater ease in putting into prac- 
tice his theory of verse. And this made him thor- 
oughly original. He was no imitator either of Tenny- 
son or of Swinburne, though musically he is nearer 
to them than to any others of his day. We constantly 
notice in his verse that dainty effect which the ear 
loves, and which comes from deft marshalling of 
consonants and vowels, so that they shall add their 
suppler and subtler reinforcement to the steady in- 
fantry tramp of rhythm. Of this delicate art, which 
is much more than mere alliteration, which is con- 
cerned with dominant accented vowels as well as con- 
sonants, with the easy flow of liquids and fricatives 



MEMORIAL. XXXV 

and with the progressive opening or closing of the 
organs of articulation, the laws are not easy to formu- 
late, but examples abound in Lanier's poems. 

Mr. Stedman, poet and critic, raises the question 
whether Lanier's extreme conjunction of the artistic 
with the poetic temperament, which he says no man 
has more clearly displayed, did not somewhat hamper 
and delay his power of adequate expression. Possi- 
bly, but he was building not for the day, but for time. 
He must work out his laws of poetry, even if he had 
almost to invent its language ; for to him was given 
the power of analysis as well as of construction, and 
he was too conscientious to do anything else than to 
find out what was best and why, and then tell and 
teach it as he had learnt it, even if men said that his 
late spring was delaying bud and blossom. 

But it would be a great mistake to find in Lanier 
only, or chiefly, the artist. He had the substance of 
poetry. He possessed both elaments, as Stedman 
says, "in extreme conjunction." He overflowed witli 
fancy. His imagination needed to be held in check. 
This was recognized in "Corn," and appears more 
fully in " The Symphony," the first productions which 
gave him wide recognition as a poet. Illustrations 
too mucli abound to allow selection. 

And for the substance of invention there needed, 
in Lanier's judgment, large and exact knowledge of 
the world's facts. A poet must be a student of things, 
truths, and men. His own studies were wide and his 
scholarship accurate. He did not believe that art 
comes all by instinct, without work. In one of his 
keen criticisms of poets he said of Edgar A. Poe, 
whom he esteemed more highly than his countrymen 
are wont to do : *' The trouble with Poe was, he did 



XXX vi MEMORIAL. 

not knotv enough. He needed to know a good many 
more things in order to be a great poet." Lanier had 
"a passion for the exact trutli," and all of it. 

The intense sacredness with which Lanier invested 
Art held him thrall to the highest ethical ideas. To 
him the most beautiful thing of all was Right. He 
loved the words, " the beauty of holiness," and it 
pleased him to reverse the phrase and call it " the 
holiness of beauty." When one reads Lanier, he is 
reminded of two writers, Milton and Ruskin. More 
than any other great English authors they^ are dom- 
inated by this beauty of holiness. Lanier was satu- 
rated with it. It shines out of every line he wrote. It 
is not that he never wrote a maudlin line, but that 
every thought was lofty. That it must be so was j\ 
first postulate of his Art. Hear his words to the stu- 
dents of Johns Hopkins University : 

" Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing 
combination of tender curves and spheric softness 
that ever stood for woman ; yet if the lip have a cer- 
tain fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow be in- 
sincere, if in the minutest ps^ticular the physical 
beauty suggest a moral ugliness, that sculptor — 
unless he be portraying a moral ugliness for a moral 
purpose — may as well give over his marble for pav- 
ing-stones. Time, whose judgments are inexorably 
moral, will not accept his work. For, indeed, we may 
say that he who has not yet perceived how artistic 
beauty and moral beauty are convergent lines which 
run back into a common ideal origin, and who there- 
fore is not afire with moral beauty just as with artistic 
beauty — that he, in short, who has not come to that 
stage of quiet and eternal frenzy in which the beauty 
of holiness and the holiness of beauty mean one 
thing, burn as one fire, shine as one light within him* 
he is not yet the great artist." 



MEMORIAL. XXX vi) 

And he returns to the theme : 

" Can not one say with authority to the young 
artist, whether working in stone, in color, in tones, or 
in character-forms of the novel : So far from dreading 
that your moral purpose will interfere with your 
beautiful creation, go forward in the clear conviction 
that unless you are suffused — soul and body, one might 
say — with that moral purpose which finds its largest 
expression in love ; that is, the love of all things in 
their proper relation ; unless you are suffused with 
this love, do not dare to meddle wnth beauty ; unless 
you are suffused with beauty, do not dare to meddle 
with love ; vmless you are sviffused with truth, do not 
dare to meddle with goodness ; in a word, unless you 
are suffused with truth, wisdom, goodness, and love, 
abandon the hope that the ages will accept you as an 
artist." 

Thus was it true, as was said of his work by hir 
associate. Dr. Wm. Hand Browne, that "one thread of 
purpose runs through it all. This thread is found in 
his fervid love for his fellow-men, and his never ceas- 
ing endeavors to kindle an enthusiasm for beauty, 
purity, nobility of life, which he held it the poet's 
first duty to teach and to exemplify." And so there 
came into his verse a solemn, worshipful element, 
dominating it everywhere, and giving loftiness to its 
beauty. For he was the democrat whom he described 
in contrast to Whitman's mere brawny, six-footed, 
open-shirted hero, whose strength was only that of 
the biceps: 

" My democrat, the democrat whom I contemplate 
with pleasure, the democrat who is to write or to read 
the poetry of the future, may have a mere thread for 
his biceps, yet he shall be strong enough to handle 
hell; he shall play ball with the earth; and albeit his 
stature may be no more than a boy's, he shall still be 



XXXVlU MEMORIAL. 



taller than the great redwoods of California ; his 
height shall be the height of great resolution, and 
love, and faith, and beauty, and knowledge, and subtle 
meditation ; his head shall be forever among the 
stars." 

This standard he could not forget in his judgments 
of artists. There was something in Whitman which 
"refreshed him like harsh salt spray," but to Whit- 
man's lawlessness of art he was an utter foe. We find 
it written down in his notes : 

" Whitman is poetry's butcher. Huge raw collops 
slashed from the rump of poetry, and never mind 
gristle — is what Whitman feeds our souls with." 

"As near as I can make it out. Whitman's argu- 
ment seems to be, that, because a prairie is wide, 
therefore debauchery is admirable, and because the 
Mississippi is long, therefore every American is God." 

So he says of Swinburne : 

" He invited me to eat ; the service was silver and 
gold, but no food therein save pepper and salt." 

And of William Morris : 

" He caught a crystal cupful of the yellow light of 
sunset, and persuading himself to dream it wine, 
drank it with a sort of smile." 

Though not what would be called a religious writer, 
Lanier's large and deep thought took him to the 
deepest spiritual faiths, and the vastness of Nature 
drew him to a trust in the Infinite above us. Thus, 
his young search after God and truth brought him 
into the membership of the Presbyterian Church 
while at Oglethorpe College ; and though in after 
years his creed became broader than that imposed by 
the Church he had joined on its clergy, he could not 



1 



MEMORIAL. XXXix 

outgrow the simple faith and consecration which are 
all it requires of its membership. His college note* 
book records his earnestness ; 

" Liberty, patriotism, and civilization are on their 
knees before the men of the South, and with clasped 
liands and straining eyes are begging them to become 
Cliristians." 

How naturally his large faith in God finds expres- 
sion in his "Marshes of Glynn ; " or his reverent diS' 
cipleship of the great Artist and Master in his " Ballad 
of the Trees and the Master," or his " The Crystal," 
which was Christ. Yet, with not a whit less of wor- 
shipfulness and consecration, there grew in him a re- 
pugnance to the sectarianism of the Churches which 
put him somewhat out of sympathy with their formal 
organizations. He wrote, in what may have been a 
sketch for a poem : 

*' I fled in tears from the men's ungodly quarrel 
about God. I tied in tears to the woods, and laid me 
down on the earth. Then somewhat like the beating 
of many hearts came up to me out of the ground ; 
and I looked and my cheek lay close to a violet. Then 
my heart took courage, and I said : 

' I know that thou art the word of my God, dear 
Violet : 

And Oh, the ladder is not long that to my heaven 
leads. 

Measure what space a violet stands above the 
ground ; 

'Tis no further climbing that my soul and angels 
have to do than that.' " 

It was this quality, high and consecrate, as of a 
palmer with his vow, this knightly valiance, this con 
stant San Greal quest after the lofty in character and 
aim, this passion for Good and Love, which fellow? 



Xl MEMORIAL. 

him rather with Milton and Ruskin than with the 
less sturdily built poets of his day, and which puts 
him in sharpest contrast with the school led by Swin- 
burne — with Rossetti and Morris as his followers 
hard after him — a school whose reed has a short 
gamut, and plays but two notes, Mors and Eros, hope- 
less death and lawless love. But poetry is larger and 
finer than they know. Its face is toward the world's 
future ; it does not maunder after the flower-decked 
nymphs and yellow-skirted fays that have forever fled 
— and good riddance — their haunted springs and 
tangled thickets. It can feed on its growing sweet and 
fresh faiths, but will draw foul contagion from the 
rank mists that float over old and cold fables. For 
all knowledge is food, as faith is wine, to a genius 
like Lanier. A poet genius has great common sense. 
He lives in to-day and to-morrow, not in yesterday. 
Such men were Shakspere and Goethe. The age 
of poetry is not past ; there is nothing in culture 
or science hostile to it. Milton was one of the world's 
great poets, but he was the most cultured and schol- 
arly and statesmanlike man ol his day. He was no 
dreamer of dead dreams. Neither was Lanier a 
dreamer. He came late to the opportunity he longed 
for, but when he came to it he was a tremendous 
student, not of music alone, but of language, of 
philosophy, and of science. He loved science. He 
was an inventor. He had all the instincts and am- 
bitions of this nineteenth century. But that only 
made his range of poetic thought wider as his out- 
look became larger. The world is opening to the 
poet with every question the crucible asks of the 
elements, with every spectrum the prism steals froin 
a star. The old he has and all the new. 



MEMORIAL. xH 

All this a man of Lanier's breadth understood fully, 
lor he had a large capacity and he sought a full equip- 
ment. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of his 
gifts was their complete symmetry. It is hard to tell 
what register of perception, or sensibility, or wit, or 
will was lacking. The constructive and the critical 
faculties, the imaginative and the practical, bal- 
anced each other. His wit and humor played upor; 
the soberer background of his more recognized quali- 
ties. The artist's withdrawn vision was at any need 
promptly exchanged for the exercise of that scrupu- 
lous exactitude called for in the routine of the law- 
office or the post-office clerkship or other business 
relations, or for the play of those energies exerted in 
camp or field. There, so his comrades testify, the 
most wearing drudgeries of a soldier's life were always 
undertaken with notable alacrity and were thoroughly 
discharged, when he would as invariably return, the 
task being done, to the gentle region of his own 
high thoughts and the artist's realm of beauty. 

But how short was his day, and how slender his 
opportunity ! From the time he was of age he waged 
a constant, courageous, hopeless fight against adverse 
circumstance for room to live and write. Much very 
dear, and sweet, and most sympathetic helpfulness he 
met in the city of his adoption, and from friends else- 
where, but he could not command the time and leisure 
which might have lengthened his life and given him 
opportunity to write the music and the verse with 
which his soul was teeming. Yet short as was his 
literary life, and hindered though it were, its fruit 
will fill a large space in the garnering of the poetic 
art of our country. 

WILLIAM HAYKS WARD, 



Mr. Lanier's published works, previous to the pres- 
ent volume, and exclusive of poems and essays pub- 
lished in literary journals, are the following : 

Tiger Lilies: A novel. i6 mo, pp. v, 252. Hurd & Houghton, 
New York, 1867. 

Florida : Its Scenery, Climate and History. 12 mo, pp. 336. J. 
B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, 1876. 

Poems. Pp. 94. J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, 1877. 

The Boy's Froissart. Being Sir John Froissart's Chronicles of 
Adventure, Battle, and Custom in England, France, Spain, etc. 
Edited for Boys. Crown 8vo, pp. xxviii 422. Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons, New York, 1878. 

The Science of English Verse. Crown 8vo, pp. xv, 315. 
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1880. 

The Boy's King Arthur. Being Sir Thomas Malory's History 
of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Edited 
for Boys. Crown 8vo, pp. xlviii, 404. Charles Scribner's 
Sons, New York, 1880. 

The Boy's Mabinogion. Being the Earliest Welsh Ta'es of King 
Arthur in the famous Red Book of Hergest. Edited for Boys. 
Crown 8vo, pp. xxiv, 378. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 
1881. 

The Boy's Percy. Being Old Ballads of War, Adventure, and 
Love, from Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient Eng- 
lish Poetry. Edited for Boys. Crown 8vo, pp. xxxii, 442. 
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1882. 

The English Novel and the Principles of its Develop- 
ment. Crown 8vo, pp. 293. Charles Scribner's Sons, New 
York, 1883. 



POFMS OF SIDNEY LANIER 



Sunrise, the culminating poem, the high' 
est vision of Sidnej> Lamer, was dedicated 
through bis latest request to that friend 
■who indeed came into his life only near its 
close, yet was at first meeting recognised 
by the poet as " the father of his spirit" 
George Westfeldt. IVhen words were 
very few and the poem was nnread, even by 
any friend, the earnest bidding came : 
"Send him mv SUNRISE, that he may know 
bow entirely we are one in thought." 



HYMNS OF THE MARSHES. 



SUNRISE. 

In my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain 

Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main. 
The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep ; 
Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of 

sweep, 
Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting, 
Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting, 
Came to the gates of sleep. 
Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep 
Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep, 
Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling : 

The gates of sleep fell a-trembling 
Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter yeSy 
Shaken with happiness : 
The gates of sleep stood wide. 

I have waked, I have come, my beloved ! I might not abide ; 
I have come ere the dawn, O beloved, my live-oaks, to hide 

In your gospelling glooms, — to be 
As a lover in heaven, the marsh my marsh and the sea my sea. 

Tell me, sweet burly-bark'd, man-bodied Tree 

That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know 

From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow ? 



HYMNS OF THE MARSHES. 






They rise not from reason, but deeper inconsequent deeps. 
Reason's not one that weeps. 
What logic of greeting lies 
Betwixt dear over-beautiful trees and the rain of the eyes ? 

O cunning green leaves, little masters ! like as ye gloss 
All the dull-tissued dark with your luminous darks that em 

boss 
The vague blackness of night into pattern and plan, 
So, 
(But would I could know, but would I could know,) 
With your question embroid'ring the dark of the question of 

man, — 
So, with your silences purfling this silence of man 
While his cry to the dead for some knowledge is under the 
ban, 

Under the ban, — 
So, ye have wrought me 
Designs on the night of our knowledge, — yea, ye have taught 
me, 

So, 
That haply we know somewhat more than we know. 

Ye lispers, whisperers, singers in storms, 
Ye consciences murmuring faiths under forms. 
Ye ministers meet for each passion that grieves. 
Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves, 
Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me 
Wisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain me, — 
Sift down tremors of sweet-within-sweet 
That advise me of more than they bring, — repeat 
Me the woods- smell that swiftly but now brought breath 
From the heaven-side bank of the river of death, — 
Teach me the terms of silence, — preach me 
The passion of patience, — sift me, — impeach me, — 



SUNRISE. 

And there, oh there 
As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air 
Pray me a myriad prayer. 

My gossip, the owl, — is it thou 
That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough, 
As I pass to the beach, art stirred ? 
Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird ? 



Reverend Marsh, low-couched along the sea, 

Old chemist, rapt in alchemy. 
Distilling silence, — lo. 
That which our father-age had died to know — 

The menstruum that dissolves all matter — thou 
Hast found it : for this silence, filling now 
The globed clarity of receiving space. 
This solves us all : man, matter, doubt, disgrace. 
Death, love, sin, sanity. 
Must in yon silence' clear solution lie. 
Too clear ! That crystal nothing who '11 peruse ? 
The blackest night could bring us brighter news. 
Yet precious qualities of silence haunt 
Round these vast margins, ministrant. 
Oh, if thy soul 's at latter gasp for space. 
With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race 
Just to be fellow'd, when that thou hast found 
No man with room, or grace enough of bound 
To entertain that New thou tell'st, thou art, — 
'Tis here, 'tis here thou canst unhand thy heart 
And breathe it free, and breathe it free. 
By rangy marsh, in lone sea-liberty. 

The tide's at full: the marsh with flooded streams 
Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams. 



1 



6 HYMNS OF THE MARSHES. 

Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies 

A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies 

Shine scant with one forked galaxy, — 

The marsh brags ten : looped on his breast they lie. 

Oh, what if a sound should be made ! 

Oh, what if a bound should be laid 

To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence 

spring,— 
To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of silence the 

string ! 
I fear me, I fear me yon dome of diaphanous gleam 
Will break as a bubble o'er-blown in a dream, — 
Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of nighty 
Over-weighted with stars, over-freighted with light. 
Over-sated with beauty and silence, will seem 

But a bubble that broke in a dream, 
Zf a bound of degree to this grace be laid. 
Or a sound or a motion made. 

But no : it is made: list ! somewhere, — mystery, where? 

In the leaves ? in the air ? 
In my heart ? is a motion made : 

'Tis a motion of dawn, like a flicker of shade on shade. 
In the leaves 'tis palpable : low multitudinous stirring 
Upwinds through the woods ; the little ones, softly conferring. 
Have settled my lord 's to be looked for : so ; they are still ; 
But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill, — 
A.nd look where the wild duck sails round the bend of the 
river, — 
And look where a passionate shiver 
Expectant is bending the blades 
Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades, — 
\nd invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting, 
Are beating 



SUNRISE. 7 

The dark overhead as my heart beats, — and steady and 

free 
Is the ebb-tide flowing froni marsh to sea — 

(Run home, little streams. 

With your lapfulls of stars and dreams),— 
And a sailor unseen is hoisting a-peak. 
For list, down the inshore curve of the creek 

How merrily flutters the sail, — 
And lo, in the East ! Will the East unveil ? 
The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed 
A flush : 'tis dead ; 'tis alive : 'tis dead, ere the West 
Was aware of it : nay, 'tis abiding, 'tis unwithdrawn : 
Have a care, sweet Heaven ! 'Tis Dawn. 

Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is up 
rolled : 

To the zenith ascending, a dome of undazzling gold 
Is builded, in shape as a bee-hive, from out of the sea : 
The hive is of gold undazzling, but oh, the Bee, 

The star-fed Bee, the build-fire Bee, 

Of dazzling gold is the great Sun-Bee 
That shall flash from the hive-hole over the sea. 



Yet now the dew-drop, now the morning gray. 
Shall live their little lucid sober day 
Ere with the sun their souls exhale away. 
Now in each pettiest personal sphere of dew 
The summ'd morn shines complete as in the blue 
Big dew-drop of all heaven : with these lit shrines 
O'er-silvered to the farthest sea-confines. 
The sacramental marsh one pious plain 
Of worship lies. Peace to the ante-reign 
Of Mary Morning, blissful mother mild. 
Minded of nought but peace, and of a child. 



8 HYMNS OF THE MARSHES. 

Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and a measure 
Of motion, — not faster than dateless Olympian leisure 
Might pace with unblown ample garments from pleasure to 

pleasure, — 
The wave-serrate sea-rim sinks unjarring, unreeling. 

Forever revealing, revealing, revealing. 
Edgewise, bladewise, halfwise, wholewise, — 'tis done ! 

Good-morrow, lord Sun ! 
With several voice, with ascription one, 
The woods and the marsh and the sea and my soul 
Unto thee, whence the glittering stream of all morrows doth 

roll. 
Cry good and past-good and most heavenly morrow, lor'^ 

Sun. 

O Artisan born in the purple, — Workman Heat, — 
Parter of passionate atoms that travail to meet 
And be mixed in the death-cold oneness, — innermost Guest 
At the marriage of elements, — fellow of publicans, — blest 
King in the blouse of flame, that loiterest o'er 
The idle skies yet laborest fast evermore, — 
Thou, in the fine forge -thunder, thou, in the beat 
Of the heart of a man, thou Motive, — Laborer Heat : 
Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art yon sea's all news. 
With his inshore greens and manifold mid-sea blues, 
Pearl-glint, shell-tint, ancientest perfectest hues 
Ever shaming the maidens, — lily and rose 
Confess thee, and each mild flame that glows 
In the clarified virginal bosoms of stones that shine, 
It is thine, it is thine : 

Thou chemist of storms, whether driving the winds a-swirl 
Or a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirl 
In the magnet earth, — yea, thou with a storm for a heart. 
Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, part 



SUNRISE. 9 

From part oft sundered, yet ever a globed light, 

Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright 

Than the eye of a man may avail of: — manifold One, 

I must pass from thy face, I must pass from the face of the 

Sun : 
Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown ; 
The worker must pass to his work in the terrible town : 
But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done ; 

I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun : 
How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run, 
I am lit with the sun. 

Oh, never the mast-high run of the seas 

Of traffic shall hide thee. 
Never the hed-colored smoke of the factories 

Hide thee, 
Never the reek of the time's fen-politics 

Hide thee. 
And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge 

abide thee, 
And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that hath tried thee, 
Labor, at leisure, in art, — till yonder beside thee 
My soul shall float, friend Sun, 
The day being done. 

Baltimore, December, i88o. 
I* 



lO HYMNS OF THE MARSHES. 



II. 



INDIVIDUALITY. 

Sail on, sail on, fair cousin Cloud : 
Oh loiter hither from the sea. 

Still-eyed and shadow-brovv'd. 
Steal off from yon far-drifting crowd, 
And come and brood upon the marsh with me. 

Yon laboring low horizon-smoke, 
Yon stringent sail, toil not for thee 

Nor me ; did heaven's stroke 
The whole deep with drown'd commerce choke- 
No pitiless tease of risk or bottomry 

Would to thy rainy office close 

Thy will, or lock mine eyes from tears, 

Part wept for traders'-woes. 
Part for that ventures mean as those 
In issue bind such sovereign hopes and fears. 

— Lo, Cloud, thy downward countenance stares 
Blank on the blank-faced marsh, and thou 

Mindest of dark affairs ; 
Thy substance seems a warp of cares ; 
Like late wounds run the wrinkles on thy brow. 

Well may'st thou pause, and gloom, and stare, 
A visible conscience : I arraign 

Thee, criminal Cloud, of rare 
Contempts on Mercy, Right, and Prayer, — 
Of murders, arsons, thefts, — of nameless stain 



INDIVIDUALITY. II 

(Yet though life's logic grow as gray 
As thou, my soul's not in eclipse.) 

Cold Cloud, but yesterday 
Thy lightning slew a child at play, 
And then a priest with prayers upon his lips 

For his enemies, and then a bright 
Lady that did but ope the door 

Upon the storming night 
To let a beggar in, — strange spite, — 
And then thy sulky rain refused to pour 

Till thy quick torch a barn had burned 
Where twelve months' store of victual lay, 

A widow's sons had earned ; 
Which done, thy floods with winds returned, — 
The river raped their little herd away. 

What myriad righteous errands high 
Thy flames might run on ! In that hour 

Thou slewest the child, oh why 
Not rather slay Calamity, 
Breeder of Pain and Doubt, infernal Power ? 

Or why not plunge thy blades about 
Some maggot politician throng 

Swarming to parcel out 
The body of a land, and rout 
The maw-conventicle, and ungorge Wrong? 

What the cloud doeth 
The Lord knoweth, 
The cloud knoweth not. 
What the artist doeth, 
The Lord knoweth; 
Knoweth the artist not f 



12 HYMNS OF THE MARSHES. 

Well-answered ! — O dear artists, ye 
■ — Whether in forms of curve or hue 

Or tone your gospels be — 
Say wrong This work is not of me, 
But God : it is not true, it is not true. 

Awful is Art because 'tis free. 
The artist trembles o'er his plan 

Where men his Self must see. 
Who made a song or picture, he 
Did it, and not another, God nor man. 

My Lord is large, my Lord is strong : 
Giving, He gave : my me is mine. 

How poor, how strange, how wrong, 
To dream He wrote the little song 
I made to Him with love's unforced design ! 

Oh, not as clouds dim laws have plann'd 
To strike down Good and fight for 111, — 

Oh, not as harps that stand 
In the wind and sound the wind's command ; 
Each artist — gift of terror! — owns his will. 

For thee, Cloud, — if thou spend thine all 
Upon the South's o'er-brimming sea 

That needs thee not ; or crawl 
To the dry provinces, and fall 
Till every convert clod shall give to thee 

Green worship ; if thou grow or fade, 
Bring on delight or misery. 

Fly east or west, be made 
Snow, hail, rain, wind, grass, rose, light, shade ; 
What matters it to thee ? There is no thee. 



MARSH SONG— AT SUNSET. 1} 

Pass, kinsman Cloud, now fair and mild : 
Discharge the will that 's not thine own. 

I work in freedom wild, 
But work, as plays a little child, 
Sure of the Father, Self, and Love, alone. 



Baltimore, 1878-9. 



III. 

MARSH SONG— AT SUNSET. 

Over the monstrous shambling sea, 

Over the Caliban sea, 
Bright Ariel-cloud, thou lingerest : 
Oh wait, oh wait, in the warm red West, — 

Thy Prospero I '11 be. 

Over the humped and fishy sea, 

Over the Caliban sea 
O cloud in the West, like a thought in the heart 
Of pardon, loose thy wing, and start, 

And do a grace for me. 

Over the huge and huddling sea. 

Over the Caliban sea, 
Bring hither my brother Antonio, — Man, — 
My injurer : night breaks the ban : 

Brother, I pardon thee. 

Baltimore, 1879-80. 



14 HYMNS OF THE MARSHES. 

IV. 

THE MARSHES OF GLYNN. 

Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven 
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven 
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs, — 
Emerald twilights, — 
Virginal shy lights, 
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows, 
When lovers pace timidly down through the green colon 

nades 
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods, 

Of the heavenly woods and glades, 
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within 
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn ; — 



Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon -day fire, — 

Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire. 

Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras o/ 

leaves, — 
Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that 

grieves. 
Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood, 
Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good ; — ■ 



O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine. 
While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did 

shine 
Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine ; 



THE MARSHES OF GLYNN. 1$ 

But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest, 

And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West, 

And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem 

Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream, — 

Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the 

oak, 
And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound 
of the stroke 
Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low. 
And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know. 
And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within, 
That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes 

of Glynn 
Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of 

yore 
When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitter- 
ness sore. 
And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain 
Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain, — 



Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face 

The vast sweet visage of space. 
To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn, 
Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn, 
For a mete and a mark 
To the forest-dark : — 
So: 
Affable live-oak, leaning low, — • 
Thus — with your favor — soft, with a reverent hand, 
(Not lightly touching your person. Lord of the land !) 
Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand 
On the firm-packed sand, 

Free 
By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea. 



l6 HYMNS OF THE MARSHES, 

Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering 

band 
Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the 

folds of the land. 
Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach- 
lines linger and curl 
As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the 

firm sweet limbs of a girl. 
Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, 
Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of 

light. 
And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods 

stands high ? 
The world lies east : how ample, the marsh and the sea and 

the sky ! 
A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in 

the blade, 
Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a 

shade. 
Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain. 
To the terminal blue of the main. 



Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea ? 

Somehow my soul seems suddenly free 
From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin. 
By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes 
of Glynn. 



Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withhold- 
ing and free 

Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the 
sea! 



THE MARSHES OF GLYNN. 1/ 

Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, 
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily 

won 
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain 
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain. 



As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod, 
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God : 
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies 
In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and 

the skies : 
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod 
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God : 
Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within 
^ The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn. 



And the sea lends large, as the marsh : lo, out of his plenty 

the sea 
Pours fast : full soon the time of the flood-tide must be : 
Look how the grace of the sea doth go 
About and about through the intricate channels that flow 

Here and there. 

Everywhere, 
Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the 

low-lying lanes. 
And the marsh is meshed with a million veins, 
That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow 
In the rose-and-silver evening glow. 

Farewell, my lord Sun ! 
The creeks overflow : a thousand rivulets run 
'Twixt the roots of the sod ; the blades of the marsh-grass 

stir ; 
Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr ; 



1 8 HYMNS OF THE MARSHES. 

Passeth, and all is still ; and the currents cease to run ; 
And the sea and the marsh are one- 



How still the plains of the waters be ! 
The tide is in his ecstasy. 
The tide is at his highest height : 
And it is night. 



And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep 

Roll in on the souls of men, 

But who will reveal to our waking ken 

The forms that swim and the shapes that creep 

Under the waters of sleep ? 
And I would I could know what swimmeth below when the 

tide comes in 
On the length and the breadth of the marvellous marshes of 

Glynn. 

Baltimore, 1878. 



CLOVER. 19 

CLOVER. 

INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN KEATS. 

Dear uplands, Chester's favorable fields, 
My large unjealous Loves, many yet one — 
A grave good-morrow to your Graces, all, 
Fair tilth and fruitful seasons 1 

Lo, how still ! 
The midmorn empties you of men, save me ; 
Speak to your lover, meadows ! None can hear. 
I lie as lies yon placid Brandywine, 
Holding the hills and heavens in my heart 
For contemplation. 

'Tis a perfect hour. 
From founts of dawn the fluent autumn day 
Has rippled as a brook right pleasantly 
Half-way to noon ; but now with widening turn 
Makes pause, in lucent meditation locked. 
And rounds into a silver pool of morn, 
Bottom'd with clover-fields. My heart just hears 
Eight lingering strokes of some far village-bell, 
That speak the hour so inward-voiced, meseems 
Time's conscience has but whispered him eight hints 
Of revolution. Reigns that mild surcease 
That stills the middle of each rural morn — 
When nimble noises that with sunrise ran 
About the farms have sunk again to rest ; 
When Tom no more across the horse-lot calls 
To sleepy Dick, nor Dick husk-voiced upbraids 
The sway-back'd roan for stamping on his foot 
With sulphurous oath and kick in flank, what time 
The cart-chain clinks across the slanting shaft, 



20 CLOVER. 

And, kitchenward, the rattling bucket plumps 

Souse down the well, where quivering ducks quack loua 

And Susan Cook is singing. 

Up the sky 
The hesitating moon slow trembles on. 
Faint as a new-washed soul but lately up 
From out a buried body. Far about, 
A hundred slopes in hundred fantasies 
Most ravishingly run, so smooth of curve 
That I but seem to see the fluent plain 
Rise toward a rain of clover-blooms, as lakes 
Pout gentle mounds of plashment up to meet 
Big shower-drops. Now the little winds, as bees, 
Bowing the blooms come wandering where I lie 
Mixt soul and body with the clover-tufts, 
Light on my spirit, give from wing and thigh 
Rich pollens and divine sweet irritants 
To every nerve, and freshly make report 
Of inmost Nature's secret autumn-thought 
Unto some soul of sense within my frame 
That owns each cognizance of the outlying five, 
And sees, hears, tastes, smells, touches, all in one. 

Tell me, dear Clover (since my soul is thine, 

Since I am fain give study all the day, 

To make thy ways my ways, thy service mine, 

To seek me out thy God, my God to be. 

And die from out myself to live in thee) — 

Now, Cousin Clover, tell me in mine ear : 

Go'st thou to market with thy pink and green ? 

Of what avail, this color and this grace ? 

Wert thou but squat of stem and brindle-brown, 

Still careless herds would feed. A poet, thou : 

What worth, what worth, the whole of all thine art ? 

Three-Leaves, instruct me ! I am sick of price. 



CLOVER. 21 

Framed in the arching of two clover-stems 

Where-through I gaze from off my hill, afar, 

The spacious fields from me to Heaven take on 

Tremors of change and new significance 

To th' eyCr as to the ear a simple tale 

Begins xo Hint a parable's sense beneath. 

The prospect widens, cuts all bounds of blue 

Where horizontal limits bend, and spreads 

Into a curious-hill'd and curious-valley'd Vast, 

Endless before, behind, around ; which seems 

Th' incalculable Up-and-Down of Time 

Made plain before mine eyes. The clover-stems 

Still cover all the space ; but now they bear. 

For clover-blooms, fair, stately heads of men 

With poets' faces heartsome, dear and pale — 

Sweet visages of all the souls of time 

Whose loving service to the world has been 

In the artist's way expressed and bodied. Oh, 

In arms' reach, here be Dante, Keats, Chopin, 

Raphael, Lucretius, Omar, Angelo, 

Beethoven, Chaucer, Schubert, Shakespeare, Bach, 

And Buddha (sweetest masters ! Let me lay 

These arms this once, this humble once, about 

Your reverend necks — the most containing clasp, 

For all in all, this world e'er saw !) and there, 

Yet further on, bright throngs unnamable 

Of workers worshipful, nobilities 

In the Court of Gentle Service, silent men. 

Dwellers in woods, brooders on helpful art, 

And all the press of them, the fair, the large, 

That wrought with beauty. 

Lo, what bulk is here ? 
Now comes the Course-of-things, shaped like an Ox, 
Slow browsing, o'er my hillside, ponderously — 
The huge-brawned, tame, and workful Course-of-things, 



22 CLOVER. 

That hath his grass, if earth be round or flat, 

And hath his grass, if empires plunge in pain 

Or faiths flash out. This cool, unasking Ox 

Comes browsing o'er my hills and vales of Time, 

And thrusts me out his tongue, and curls it, sharp, 

And sicklewise, about my poets' heads, 

And twists them in, all — Dante, Keats, Chopin, 

Raphael, Lucretius, Omar, Angelo, 

Beethoven, Chaucer, Schubert, Shakespeare, Bach, 

And Buddha, in one sheaf — and champs and chews. 

With slantly-churning jaws, and swallows down ; 

Then slowly plants a mighty forefoot out, 

And makes advance to futureward, one inch. 

So : they have played their part. 

And to this end ? 
This, God ? This, troublous-breeding Earth ? This, Sun 
Of hot, quick pains ? To this no-end that ends. 
These Masters wrought^ and wept, and sweated blood, 
And burned, and loved, and ached with public shame, 
And found no friends to breathe their loves to, save 
Woods and wet pillows ? This was all ? This Ox ? 
" Nay," quoth a sum of voices in mine ear, 
*' God's clover, we, and feed His Course of-things ; 
The pasture is God's pasture ; systems strange 
Of food and fiberment He hath, whereby 
The general brawn is built for plans of His 
To quality precise. Kinsman, learn this : 
The artist's market is the heart of man ; 
The artist's price, some little good of man. 
Tease not thy vision with vain search for ends. 
The End of Means is art that works by love. 
The End of Ends ... in God's Beginning 's lost." 

West Chester, Pa., Summer of 1876. 



THE WAVING OF THE CORN. 23 



THE WAVING OF THE CORN. 

Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled 
Thy plough to ring this solitary tree 

With clov'cr, whose round plat, reserved a-field, 
In cool green radius twice my length may be — 

Scanting the corn thy furrows else might yield, 
To pleasure August, bees, fair thoughts, and me, 
That here come oft together — daily I, 
Stretched prone in summer's mortal ecstasy, 
Do stir with thanks to thee, as stirs this morn 

With waving of the corn. 

— 1 
Unseen, the farmer's boy from round the hill 
Whistles a snatch that seeks his soul unsought, 
And fills some time with tune, howbeit shrill ; 
The cricket tells straight on his simple thought — 

Nay, 'tis the cricket's way of being still ; 
The peddler bee drones in, and gossips naught ; 
Far down the wood, a one-desiring dove 
Times me the beating of the heart of love : 
And these be all the sounds that mix, each morn^ 
With waving of the corn. 

From here to where the louder passions dwell, 
Green leagues of hilly separation roll : 

Trade ends where yon far clover ridges swell. 
Ye terrible Towns, ne'er claim the trembling soul 

That, craftless all to buy or hoard or sell, 
From out your deadly complex quarrel stole 
To company with large amiable trees, 
Suck honey summer with unjealous bees. 
And take Time's strokes as softly as this morn 
Takes wa\ing of the corn. 
West Chester. Pa., 1876. 



'54 SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE. 



SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE. 

Out of the hills of Habersham, 

Down the valleys of Hall, 
I hurry amain to reach the plain, 
Run the rapid and leap the fall, 
Split at the rock and together again. 
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide. 
And flee from folly on every side 
With a lover's pain to attain the plain 

Far from the hills of Habersham, 

Far from the valleys of Hall. 

All down the hills of Habersham, 

All through the valleys of Hall, 
The rushes cried Abide, abide, 
The willful waterweeds held me thrall, 
The laving laurel turned my tide, 
The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay, 
The dewberry dipped for to work delay, 
And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide, 

Here in the hills of Habersham, 

Here in the valleys of Hall. 

High o'er the hills of Habersham, 

Veiling the valleys of Hall, 
The hickory told me manifold 
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall 
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, 
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, 
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, 



SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE. 2^ 

Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold 

Deep shades of tJie hills of Habershatn, 
These glades in the valleys of Hall. 



And oft in the hills of Habersham, 

And oft in the valleys of Hall, 
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone 
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, 
And many a luminous jewel lone 
— Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, 
Ruby, garnet and amethyst — 
Made lures with the lights of streaming stone 

In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, 

In the beds of the valleys of Hall. 



But oh, not the hills of Habersham, 

And oh, not the valleys of Hall 
Avail : I am fain for to water the plain. 
Downward the voices of Duty call — 
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, 
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, 
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn. 
And the lordly main from beyond the plain 

Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, 

Calls through the valleys of Hall. 



1877 



26 FROM THE FLATS. 



FROM THE FLATS. 

What heartache — ne'er a hill ! 
Inexorable, vapid, vague and chill 
The drear sand-levels drain my spirit low. 
With one poor word they tell me all they know ; 
Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain, 
Do drawl it o'er again and o'er again. 
They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name : 

Always the same, the same. 



Nature hath no surprise. 
No ambuscade of beauty 'gainst mine eyes 
From brake or lurking dell or deep defile ; 
No humors, frolic forms — this mile, that mile ; 
No rich reserves or happy -valley hopes 
Beyond the bend of roads, the distant slopes. 
Her fancy fails, her wild is all run tame : 

Ever the same, the same. 



Oh might I through these tears 
But glimpse some hill my Georgia high uprears, 
Where white the quartz and pink the pebble shine. 
The hickory heavenward strives, the muscadine 
Swings o'er the slope, the oak's far-falling shade 
Darkens the dogwood in the bottom glade, 
And down the hollow from a ferny nook 
Bright leaps a living brook! 

Tampa, Florida, 1877. 



THE MOCKING BIRD, 23 



THE MOCKING BIRD. 

Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray 

That o'er the general leafage boldly grew, 

He summ'd the woods in song ; or typic drew 

The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay 

Of languid doves when long their lovers stray, 

And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew 

At morn in brake or bosky avenue. 

Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say. 

Then down he shot, bounced airily along 

The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song 

Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again. 

Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain : 

How may the death of that dull insect be 

The life of yon trim Shakspere on the tree ? 



2» TAMPA ROBINS. 



TAMPA ROBINS. 

The robin laughed in the orange -tree : 
** Ho, windy North, a fig for thee : 
While breasts are red and wings are bold 
And green trees wave us globes of gold, 
Time's scythe shall reap but bliss for me 
— Sunlight, song, and the orange -tree. 

Burn, golden globes in leafy sky, 
My orange-planets : crimson I 
Will shine and shoot among the spheres 
(Blithe meteor that no mortal fears) 
And thrid the heavenly orange-tree 
With orbits bright of minstrelsy. 

If that I hate wild winter's spite — 
The gibbet trees, the world in white. 
The sky but gray wind over a grave — 
Why should I ache, the season's slave ? 

I'll sing from the top of the orange-tree 

Gramercy, 'winter's tyranny. 

I '11 south with the sun, and keep my clime ; 

My wing is king of the summer-time ; 

My breast to the sun his torch shall hold ; 

And I '11 call down through the green and gold 
Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me, 
Bestir thee under the orange-tree" 

Tampa, Florida, 1877. 



THE CRYSTAL. 29 



THE CRYSTAL. 

At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time, 

When far within the spirit's hearing rolls 

The great soft rumble of the course of things — 

A bulk of silence in a mask of sound, — 

When darkness clears our vision that by day 

Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl 

For truth and flitteth here and there about 

Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft 

Is minded for to sit upon a bough, 

Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken tree 

And muse in that gaunt place, — 'twas then my heart, 

Deep in the meditative dark, cried out : 

" Ye companies of governor-spirits grave, 
Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming news 
From steep-wall'd heavens, holy malcontents, 
Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, all 
That brood about the skies of poesy. 
Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars ; 
Yet, if a man look hard upon you, none 
With total lustre blazeth, no, not one 
But hath some heinous freckle of the flesh 
Upon his shining cheek, not one but winks 
His ray, opaqued with intermittent mist 
Of defect ; yea, you masters all must ask 
Some sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give, 
We lovers of you, heavenly-glad to meet 
Your largesse so with love, and interplight 
Your geniuses with our mortalities. 



30 THE CRYSTAL. 

Thus unto thee, O sweetest Shakspere sole, 
A hundred hurts a day I do forgive 
('Tis little, but, enchantment ! 'tis for thee) : 
Small curious quibble ; Juliet's prurient pun 
In the poor, pale face of Romeo's fancied death ; 
Cold rant of Richard ; Henry's fustian roar 
Which frights away that sleep he invocates ; 
Wronged Valentine's unnatural haste to yield ; 
Too-silly shifts of maids that mask as men 
In faint disguises that could ne'er disguise — 
Viola, Julia, Portia, Rosalind ; 
Fatigues most drear, and needless overtax 
Of speech obscure that had as lief be plain ; 
Last I forgive (with more delight, because 
'Tis more to do) the labored -lewd discourse 
That e'en thy young invention's youngest heir 
Besmirched the world with. 

Father Homer, thee. 
Thee also I forgive thy sandy wastes 
Of prose and catalogue, thy drear harangues 
That tease the patience of the centuries. 
Thy sleazy scrap of story, — but a rogue's 
Rape of a light-o'-love, — too soiled a patch 
To broider with the gods. 

Thee, Socrates, 
Thou dear and very strong one, I forgive 
Thy year-worn cloak, thine iron stringencies 
That were but dandy upside-down, thy words 
Of truth that, mildlier spoke, had mainlier wrought 

4o, Buddha, beautiful ! I pardon thee 
That all the All thou hadst for needy man 
Was Nothing, and thy Best of being was 
But not to be. 



THE CRYSTAL. Jl 

Worn Dante, I forgive 
The implacable hates that in thy horrid hells 
Or burn or freeze thy fellows, never loosed 
By death, nor time, nor love. 

And I forgive 
Thee, Milton, those thy comic-dreadful wars 
Where, armed with gross and inconclusive steel, 
Immortals smite immortals mortalwise 
And fill all heaven with folly. 

Also thee, 
Brave ^^schylus, thee I forgive, for that 
Thine eye, by bare bright justice basilisked, 
Turned not, nor ever learned to look where Love 
Stands shining. 

So, unto thee, Lucretius mine 
(For oh, what heart hath loved thee like to this 
That's now complaining?), freely I forgive 
Thy logic poor, thine error rich, thine earth 
Whose graves eat souls and all. 

Yea, all you hearts 
Of beauty, and sweet righteous lovers large : 
Aurelius fine, oft superfine ; mild Saint 
A Kempis, overmild ; Epictetus, 
Whiles low in thought, still with old slavery tinct ; 
Rapt Behmen, rapt too far ; high Swedenborg, 
O'ertoppling ; Langley, that with but a touch 
Of art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the top 
Of English songs, whereof 'tis dearest, now, 
And most adorable ; Csedmon, in the morn 
A-calling angels with the cow-herd's call 
That late brought up the cattle ; Emerson, 



3? THE CRYSTAL. 

Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost 

Thy Self, sometimes ; tense Keats, with angels' nerves 

Where men's were better ; Tennyson, largest voice 

Since Milton, yet some register of wit 

Wanting ;— all, all, I pardon, ere 'tis asked. 

Your more or less, your little mole that marks 

You brother and your kinship seals to man. 

But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time, 

But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue, 

But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, 

O perfect life in perfect labor writ, 

O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest, — 

What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse. 

What least defect or shadow of defect, 

What rumor, tattled by an enemy. 

Of inference loose, what lack of grace 

Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death'Sj — • 

Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, 

Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ ? " 

Baltimorb, 1880. 



THE REVENGE OF HAMISH. 33 



THE REVENGE OF HAMISH. 

It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken 
lay; 
And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man, 
Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran 
Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and 
passed that way. 



Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril ; she was the daintiest 
doe : 
In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern 
She reared, and rounded her ears in turn. 
Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to a crown 
did go 



Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had the 
form of a deer ; 
And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose, 
For their day-dream slowlier came to a close, 
Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with waiting and 
wonder and fear. 



Then Alan the huntsman sprang over the hillock, the hounds 
shot by. 
The does and the ten-tined buck made a marvellous bound, 
The hounds swept after with never a sound. 
But Alan loud winded his horn in sign that the quarry was 
nigh. 

2*. 



34 THE REVENGE OF HAMISH. 

For at dawn of that clay proud Maclean of Lochbuy to the 
hunt had waxed wild, 
And he cursed at old Alan till Alan fared off with the 

hounds 
For to drive him the deer to the lower glen-grounds : 
" I will kill a red deer," quoth Maclean, " in the sight of the 
wife and the child." 



So gayly he paced with the wife and the child to his chosen 
stand ; 
But he hurried tall Hamish the henchman ahead : " Go 

turn,"— 
Cried Maclean — "if the deer seek to cross to the burn, 
Do thou turn them to me : nor fail, lest thy back be red as 
thy hand." 

Now hard-fortuned Hamish, half blown of his breath with 
the height of the hill, 
Was white in the face when the ten-tined buck and the does 
Drew leaping to burn-ward ; huskily rose 
His shouts, and his nether lip twitched, and his legs were 
o'er-weak for his will. 

So the deer darted lightly by Hamish and bounded away to 
the burn. 
But Maclean never bating his watch tarried waiting below 
Still Hamish hung heavy with fear for to go 
All the space of an hour ; then he went, and his face was 
greenish and stern, 

And his eye sat back in the socket, and shrunken the eye- 
balls shone, 
As withdrawn from a vision of deeds it were shame to see. 



THE REVENGE OF HAMISH. 3S 

'* Now, now, grim henchman, what is't with thee ? " 
Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon the wind 
hath upblown. 



** Three does and a ten-tined buck made out," spoke Ham- 
ish, full mild, 
" And I ran for to turn, but my breath it was blown, and 

they passed ; 
I was weak, for ye called ere I broke me my fast." 
Cried Maclean : " Now a ten-tined buck m the sight of the 
wife and the child 



I had killed if the gluttonous kern had not wrought me a 
snail's own wrong ! " 
Then he sounded, and down came kinsmen and clansmen 

all: 
" Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let fall, 
And reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of 
thong ! " 



So Hamish made bare, and took him his strokes ; at the last 
he smiled. 
" Now I'll to the burn," quoth Maclean. " for it still may 

be, 
If a slimmer-paunched henchman will hurry with me, 
I shall kill me the ten-tined buck for a gift to the wife and 
the child ! " 



Then the clansmen departed, by this path and that ; and 
over the hill 
Sped Maclean with an outward wrath for an inward 
shame ; 



36 THE REVENGE OF HAMISH. 

And that place of the lashing full quiet became ; 
And the wife and the child stood sad ; and bloody-backed 
Hamish sat still. 

But look ! red Hamish has risen •, quick about and about 
turns he. 
" There is none betwixt me and the crag-top ! " he 

screams under breath. 
Then, livid as Lazarus lately from death, 
He snatches the child from the mother, and clambers the 
crag toward the sea. 

Now the mother drops breath ; she is dumb, and her heart 
goes dead for a space. 
Till the motherhood, mistress of death, shrieks, shrieks 

through the glen, 
And that place of the lashing is live with men, 
And Maclean, and the gillie that told him, dash up in a des- 
perate race. 

Not a breath's time for asking ; an eye-glance reveals all the 
tale untold. 
They follow mad Hamish afar up the crag toward the sea, 
And the lady cries : " Clansmen, run for a fee ! — 
Yon castle and lands to the two first hands that shall hook 
him and hold 

Fast Hamish back from the brink ! " — and ever she flies up 
the steep. 
And the clansmen pant, and they sweat, and they jostle 

and strain. 
But, mother, 'tis vain ; but, father, 'tis vain ; 
Stern Hamish stands bold on the brink, and dangles the 
child o'er the deep. 



THE REVENGE OF HAMISH. 37 

Now a faintness falls on the men that run, and they all stand 
still. 
And the wife prays Hamish as if he were God, on her knees, 
Crying : " Hamish ! O Hamish ! but please, but please 
For to spare him ! " and Hamish still dangles the child, with 
a wavering will. 

)n a sudden he turns ; with a sea-hawk scream, and a gibe, 
and a song. 
Cries : " So ; I will spare ye the child if, in sight of ye all, 
Ten blows on Maclean's bare back shall fall, 
And ye reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the bite of 
the thong ! " 

Then Maclean he set hardly his tooth to his lip that his tooth 
was red. 
Breathed short for a space, said : " Nay, but it never shall 

be! 
Let me hurl off the damnable hound in the sea ! " 
But the wife : " Can Hamish go fish us the child from the 
sea, if dead ? 

Say yea!— Let them lash vte, Hamish?"—" Nay ! "— " Hus- 
band, the lashing will heal ; 
But, oh, who will heal me the bonny sweet bairn in his 

grave ? 
Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a knave ? 
Quick ! Love ! I will bare thee — so — kneel ! " Then Mac- 
lean 'gan slowly to kneel 

With never a word, till presently downward he jerked to the 
earth. 
Then the hLMichman — he that smote Hamish — would trem 
ble and lag ; 



':^8 THE REVENGE OF IIAMISH. 

" Strike, hard ! " quoth Hamish, full stern, from the crag j 
Then he struck him, and " One ! " sang Hamish, and danced 
with the child in his mirth. 

And no man spake beside Hamish ; he counted each stroke 
with a song. 
When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a pace 

down the height, 
And he held forth the child in the heartaching sight 
Of the mother, and looked all pitiful grave, as repenting s. 
wrong. 

And there a.~^ the motherly arms stretched out with the thanks- 
giving prayer— 
And there as the mother crept up with a fearful swift pace. 
Till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie's face — 
In a flash fierce Hamish turned round and lifted the child in 
the air, 

A^nd sprang with the child in his arms from the horrible 
height in the sea, 
Shrill screeching, " Revenge 1 " in the wind-rush; and 

pallid Maclean, 
Age-feeblfc with anger and impotent pain. 
Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold of dead 
roots of a tree — 

And gazed hungrily o'er, and the blood from his back drip- 
dripped in the brine, 
And a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he flew. 
And the mother stared white on the waste of blue. 
And the wind drove a cloud to seaward, and the sun began 
to shine. 

Baltimore, 1878. 



TO BAYARD TAYLOR. 39 



TO BAYARD TAYLOR. 

To range, deep-wrapt, along a heavenly height, 
O'erseeing all that man but undersees ; 

To loiter down lone alleys of delight, 

And hear the beating of the hearts of trees, 

And think the thoughts that lilies speak in white 
By greenwood pools and pleasant passages ; 



With healthy dreams a-dream in flesh and soul, 

To pace, in mighty meditations drawn, 
From out the forest to the open knoll 

Where much thyme is, whence blissful leagues of law 
Betwixt the fringing woods to southward roll 

By tender inclinations ; mad with dawn. 



Ablaze with fires that flame in silver dew 

When each small globe doth glass the morning-star, 
Long ere the sun, sweet-smitten through and through 

With dappled revelations read afar, 
Suffused with saintly ecstasies of blue , 

As all the holy eastern heavens are, — 



To fare thus fervid to what daily toil 
Employs thy spirit in that larger Land 

Where thou art gone ; to strive, but not to moil 
In nothings that do mar the artist's hand, 

Not drudge unriched, as grain rots back to soil, — 
No profit out of death, — going, yet still at stand, — 



40 TO BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Giving what life is here in hand to-day 

For that that 's in to-morrow's bush, perchance,— 
Of this year's harvest none in the barn to lay, 

All sowed for next year's crop, — a dull advance 
In curves that come but by another way 

Back to the start, — a thriftless thrift of ants 



Whose winter wastes their summer ; O my Friend, 
Freely to range, to muse, to toil, is thine : 

Thine, now, to watch with Homer sails that bend 
Unstained by Helen's beauty o'er the brine 

Tow'rds some clean Troy no Hector need defend 
Nor flame devour ; or, in some mild moon's shinCj 



Where amiabler winds the v/histle heed, 
To sail with Shelley o'er a bluer sea, 

And mark Prometheus, from his fetters freed, 
Pass with Deucalion over Italy, 

While bursts the flame from out his eager reed 
Wild-stretching towards the West of destiny; 



Or, prone with Plato, Shakspere and a throng 
Of bards beneath some plane-tree's cool eclipse 

To gaze on glowing meads where, lingering long. 
Psyche's large Butterfly her honey sips; 

Or, mingling free in choirs of German song, 
To learn of Goethe's life from Goe*^he's lips ; 



These, these are thine, and we, who still are dead, 

Do yearn — nay, not to kill thee back again 
Into this charnel life, this lowlihead. 



TO BAYARD TAYLOR. 4I 

Not to the dark of sense, the blinking brain, 
The hugged delusion drear, the hunger fed 
On husks of guess, the monarchy of pain, 



The cross of love, the wrench of faith, the shame 
Of science that cannot prove proof is, the twist 

Of blame for praise and bitter praise for blame. 
The silly stake and tether round the wrist 

By fashion fixed, the virtue that doth claim 
The gains of vice, the lofty mark that's missed 



By all the mortal space 'twixt heaven and hell, 
The soul's sad growth o'er stationary friends 

Who hear us from our height not well, not well, 
The slant of accident, the sudden bends 

Of purpose tempered strong, the gambler's spell, 
The son's disgrace, the plan that e'er depends 



On others' plots, the tricks that passion plays 
(I loving you, you him, he none at all). 

The artist's pain — to walk his blood-stained ways, 
A special soul, yet judged as general — 

The endless grief of art, the sneer that slays. 
The war, the wound, the groan, the funeral pall- 



Not into these, bright spirit, do we yearn 
To bring thee back, but oh, to be, to be 

Unbound of all these gyves, to stretch, to spurn 
The dark from off our dolorous lids, to see 

Our spark. Conjecture, blaze and sunwise burn, 
And suddenly to stand again by thee ! 



42 TO BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Ah, not for us, not yet, by thee to stand : 

For us, the fret, the dark, the thorn, the chill , 

For us, to call across unto thy Land, 
'* Friend, get thee to the ministrels' holy hill, 

And kiss those brethren for us, mouth and hand, 
And make our duty to our master WilL" 

Baltimore, 1879. 



A DEDICATION. 43 



A DEDICATION. 



TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 

As Love will carve dear names upon a tree, 
Symbol of gravure on his heart to be, 

So thought I thine with loving text to set 
In the growth and substance of my canzonet ; 

But, writing it, my tears begin to fall — 

This wild-rose stem for thy large name 's too small ! 

Nay, still my trembling hands are fain, are fain 
Cut the good letters though they lap again ; 

Perchance such folk as mark the blur and stain 
Will say. It was the beating of the rainj 

Or, haply these o'er-woundings of the stem 
May loose some little balm, to plead for them. 



187& 



44 TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 



^1 



TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 

Look where a three-point star shall weave his beam 

Into the slumb'rous tissue of some stream, 

Till his bright self o'er his bright copy seem 

Fulfillment dropping on a come-true dream ; 

So in this night of art thy soul doth show 

Her excellent double in the steadfast flow 

Of wishing love that through men's hearts doth go : 

At once thou shin'st above and shin'st below. 

E 'en when thou strivest there within Art's sky 

(Each star must o'er a strenuous orbit fly), 

Full calm thine image in our love doth lie, 

A Motion glassed in a Tranquillity. 

So triple-rayed, thou mov'st, yet stay'st, serene — 

Art's artist, Love's dear woman, Fame's good queen ! 

Baltimorb, 1875. 



THE STIRRUP-CUP. 4$ 



THE STIRRUP-CUP. 

Death, thou'rt a cordial old and rare : 
Look how compounded, with what care! 
Time got his wrinkles reaping thee 
Sweet herbs from all antiquity. 



David to thy distillage went, 
Keats, and Gotama excellent, 
Omar Khayyam, and Chaucer bright, 
And Shakspere for a king-delight. 



Then, Time, let not a drop be spilt : 
Hand me the cup whene'er thou vvilt J 
*Tis thy rich stirrup-cup to me; 
I'll drink it down right smilingly. 



fAMPA, Florida, 1877 



46 A SONG OF ETERNITY IN TIME. 



II 



A SONG OF ETERNITY IN TIME. 

Once, at night, in the manor wood 
My Love and I long silent stood, 
Amazed that any heavens could 

Decree to part us, bitterly repining. 

My Love, in aimless love and grief, 
Reached forth and drew aside a leaf 
That just above us played the thief 

And stole our starlight that for us was shining. 



A star that had remarked her pain 
Shone straightway down that leafy lane, 
And wrought his image, mirror-plain, 

Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming. 
" Thus Time," I cried, " is but a tear 
Some one hath wept 'twixt hope and fear. 
Yet in his little lucent sphere 

Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming." 

Macon, Georgia, 1867. Revised in 1879. 



OWL AGAINST ROBIN. 47 



OWL AGAINST ROBIN. 

Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him 
Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him 
Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest. 

" From the north, from the east, from the south and the west 
Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover. 
Over and over and over and over. 
Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven, 
Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven : 
How can we sleep ? 



Peep ! you whistle, and cheep / cheep / cheep ! 
Oh, peep, if you will, and buy, if 'tis cheap, 
And have done ; for an owl must sleep. 
Are ye singing for fame, and who shall be first? 
Each day 's the same, yet the last is worst. 
And the summer is cursed with the silly outburst 
Of idiot red-breasts peeping and cheeping 
By day, when all honest birds ought to be sleeping. 
Lord, what a din ! And so out of all reason. 
Have ye not heard that each thing hath its season ? 
Night is to work in, night is for play-time ; 
Good heavens, not day-time I 



A vulgar flaunt is the flaring day, 

The impudent, hot, unsparing day, 

That leaves not a stain nor a secret untold,— 

Day the reporter, — the gossip of old, — 

Deformity's tease, — man's common scold— 



48 OWL AGAINST ROBIN. 

Poh ! Shut the eyes, let the sense go numb 
When day down the eastern way has come. 
'Tis clear as the moon (by the argument drawn 
From Design) that the world should retire at dawn. 
Day kills. The leaf and the laborer breathe 
Death in the sun, the cities seethe, 
The mortal black marshes bubble with heat 
And puff up pestilence ; nothing is sweet 
Has to do with the sun : even virtue will taint 
(Philosophers say) and manhood grow faint 
In the lands where the villainous sun has sway 
Through the livelong drag of the dreadful day. 
What Eden but noon-light stares it tame, 
Shadowless, brazen, forsaken of shame? 
For the sun tells lies on the landscape, — now 
Reports me the what, unrelieved with the how, — • 
As messengers lie, with the facts alone, 
Delivering the word and withholding the tone. 

But oh, the sweetness, and oh, the light 

Of the high-fastidious night ! 

Oh, to awake with the wise old stars^ 

The cultured, the careful, the Chesterfield stars, 

That wink at the work-a-day fact of crime 

And shine so rich through the ruins of time 

That Baalbec is finer than London ; oh. 

To sit on the bough that zigzags low 

By the woodland pool, 
And loudly laugh at man, the fool 
That vows to the vulgar sun ; oh, rare. 
To wheel from the wood to the window where 
A day-worn sleeper is dreaming of care, 
And perch on the sill and straightly stare 
Through his visions ; rare, to sail 
Aslant with the hill and a-curve with the vale,— 



OWL AGAINST ROBIN. 49 

To flit down the shadow-shot-vvith-gleam. 

Betwixt hanging leaves and starlit stream, 

Hither, thither, to and fro, 

Silent, aimless, dayless, slow 

{Aimless? Field-mice? True, they're slain, 

But the night-philosophy hoots at pain, 

Grips, eats quick, and drops the bones 

In the water beneath the bough, nor moans 

At the death life feeds on). Robin, pray 

Come away, come away 
To the cultus of night. Abandon the day. 
Have more to think and have less to say. 
And cannot you walk now ? Bah ! don't hop! 

Stop! 
Look at the owl, scarce seen, scarce heard, 
O irritan\, iterant, maddening bird ! " 

Baltimore, i88a 



!;o A SONG OF THE FUTURE. 



II 

^1 



A SONG OF THE FUTURE. 

Sail fast, sail fast, 
Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams; 
Sweep lordly o'er the drowned Past, 
Fly glittering through the sun's strange beams f 
Sail fast, sail fast. 
Breaths of new buds from off some dryinp- Jta 
With news about the future scent the sea : 
My brain is beating like the heart of Haste • 
I'll loose me a bird upon this Present waste ; 
Go, trembling song, 
And stay not long ; oh, stay not long : 
Thou 'rt only a gray and sober dove. 
But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love. 

Baltimore, 1878. 



OPPOSITION. 5) 



OPPOSITION. 

Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill. 

Complain no more ; for these, O heart, 

Direct the random of the will 

As rhymes direct the rage of art. 

The lute's fixt fret, that runs athwart 

The strain and purpose of the string. 

For governance and nice consort 
Doth bar his wilful wavering. 

The dark hath many dear avails ; 

The dark distils divinest dews; 
The dark is rich with nightingales, 

With dreams, and with the heavenly Muse> 

Bleeding with thorns of petty strife, 
I'll ease (as lovers do) my smart 

With sonnets to my lady Life 

Writ red in issues from the heart. 

What grace may lie within the chill 

Of favor frozen fast in scorn ! 
When Good's a-freeze, we call it 111! 

This rosy Time is glacier-born. 

Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, 

Complain thou not, O heart ; for these 

Bank-in the current of the will 
To uses, arts, and charities. 

Baltimore, 1879-80. 



52 ROSE-MORALS. 



ROSE-MORALS. 

I.— RED. 

Would that my songs might be 
What roses make by day and night— 
Distillments of my clod of misery 
Into deUght. 

Soul, could'st thou bare thy breast 
As yon red rose, and dare the day. 
All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest ? 
Say yea — say yea ! 

Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye ; 
The wind is up ; so ; drift away. 
That songs from me as leaves from thee may tly, 
I strive, I pray. 

II.— WHITE. 

Soul, get thee to the heart 

Of yonder tuberose : hide thee there — 
There breathe the meditations of thine art 
Suffused with prayer. 

Of spirit grave yet light. 

How fervent fragrances uprise 
Pure-born from these most n'ch and yet most white 
Virginities ! 

Mulched with unsavory death. 

Grow, Soul ! unto such white estate. 
That virginal-prayerful art shall be thy breath, 
Thy work, thy fate. 

Baltimore, 1875. 



I 



CORN. 53 



CORN. 

To-day the woods are trembling through and through 
With shimmering forms, that flash before my view, 
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue. 
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress 
Like women's hands ; the embracing boughs express 

A subtlety of mighty tenderness ; 
The copse-depths into little noises start, 
That sound anon like beatings of a heart. 
Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart. 
The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song ; 
Through that vague wafture, expirations strong 
Throb from young hickories breathing deep and long 
With stress and urgence bold of prisoned spring 
And ecstasy of burgeoning. 
Now, since the dew-plashed road of morn is dry, 
Forth venture odors of more quality 
And heavenlier giving. Like Jove's locks awry. 
Long muscadines 
Rich-wreathe the spacious foreheads of great pines, 
And breathe ambrosial passion from their vines. 
I pray with mosses, ferns and flowers shy 
That hide like gentle nuns from human eye 
To lift adoring perfumes to the sky. 
I hear faint bridal-sighs of brown and green 
Dying to silent hints of kisses keen 
As far lights fringe into a pleasant sheen. 
I start at fragmentary whispers, blown 
From undertalks of leafy souls unknown, 
Vague purports sweet, of inarticulate tone. 



54 CORN. 

Dreaming of gods, men, nuns and brides, between 
Old companies of oaks that inward lean 
To join their radiant amplitudes of green 

1 slowly move, with ranging looks that pass 

Up from the matted miracles of grass 
Into yon veined complex of space 
Where sky and leafage interlace 

So close, the heaven of blue is seen 

Inwoven with a heaven of green. 



I wander to the zigzag-cornered fence 

Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense. 

Contests with stolid vehemence 

The march of culture, setting limb and thorn 
As pikes against the army of the corn. 

There, while I pause, my fieldward-faring eyes 
Take harvests, where the stately corn-ranks rise, 

Of inward dignities 
And large benignities and insights wise,, 

Graces and modest majesties. 
Thus, without theft. I reap another's field ; 
Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield, 
And heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed. 

Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands 
Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands, 
And waves his blades upon the very edge 
And hottest thicket of the battling hedge. 
Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk, 
Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime 
That leads the vanward of his timid time 
And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme— 



} 

1 



CORN. 55 

Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow 
By double increment, above, below ; 
Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee, 
Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry 
That moves in gentle curves of courtesy ; 
Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense, 

By every godlike sense 
Transmuted from the four wild elements. 
Drawn to high plans, 
Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's, 
Yet ever piercest downward in the mould 
And keepest hold 
Upon the reverend and steadfast earth 

That gave thee birth ; 
Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave, 

Serene and brave, 
With unremitting breath 
Inhaling life from death, 
Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent, 
Thyself thy monument. 



As poets should, 
Thou hast built up thy hardihood 
With universal food, 

Drawn in select proportion fair 
From honest mould and vagabond air ; 
From darkness of the dreadful night, 
And joyful light ; 
From antique ashes, whose departed flame 
In thee has finer life and longer fame ; 
From wounds and balms. 
From storms and calms, 
From potsherds and dry bones 
And ruin-stones. 



5^ CORN. 

Into thy vigorous substance thou hast wrought 
Whate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought i 

Yea, into cool solacing green hast spun 

White radiance hot from out the sun. 
So thou dost mutually leaven 
Strength of earth with grace of heaven ; 

So thou dost marry new and old 

Into a one of higher mould ; 

So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold, 
The dark and bright, 
And many a heart-perplexing opposite, 
And so, 

Akin by blood to high and low. 
Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part, 
Richly expending thy much-bruised heart 

In equal care to nourish lord in hall 
Or beast in stall : 

Thou took'st from all that thou mightst give to all 



O steadfast dweller on the selfsame spot 
Where thou wast born, that still repinest not — 
Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot !— 

Deeply thy mild content rebukes the land 

Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand 
Of trade, for ever rise and fall 
With alternation whimsical, 

Enduring scarce a day, 

Then swept away 
By swift engulfments of incalculable tides 
Whereon capricious Commerce rides. 
Look, thou substantial spirit of content! 
Across this little vale, thy continent. 

To where, beyond the mouldering mill, 

Yon old deserted Georgian hill 



CORN. 57 

Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest 
And seamy breast, 
By restless-hearted children left to lie 
Untended there beneath the heedless sky, 
As barbarous folk expose their old to die. 

Upon that generous-rounding side, 
With gullies scarified 
Where keen Neglect his lash hath plied, 

Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil, 

And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil. 
Scorning the slow reward of patient grain, 
He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain, 
Then sat him down and waited for the rain. 

He sailed in borrowed ships of usury — 

A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea. 

Seeking the Fleece and finding misery. 

Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle trance 
He lay, content that unthrift Circumstance 
Should plough for him the stony field of Chance. 

Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell, 

He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell, 

And turned each field into a gambler's hell. 
Aye, as each year began, 
My farmer to the neighboring city ran ; 

Passed with a mournful anxious face 

Into the banker's inner place ; 

Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace ; 

Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass ; 
Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass ; 
With many an oh and z/"and but alas 

Parried or swallowed searching questions rude, 

And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood. 

At last, small loans by pledges great renewed. 
He issues smiling from the fatal door, 
And buys with lavish hand his yearly store 



58 CORN. 

Till his small borrowings will yield no morCc 

Aye, as each year declined, 

With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind 

He mourned his fate unkind. 

In dust, in rain, with might and main. 
He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain, 
Fretted for news that made him fret again, 

Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale, 

And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail — 

In hope or fear alike for ever pale. 
And thus from year to year, through hope and fear; 
With many a curse and many a secret tear, 
Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear, 
At last 

He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, 
And all his best-of-life the easy prey 
Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way 
With vile array, 

From rascal statesman down to petty knave ; 

Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave, 

A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. 

Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest, 
He fled away into the oblivious West, 
Unmourned, unblest. 



Old hill ! old hill ! thou gashed and hairy Lear 
Whom the divine Cordelia of the year. 
E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer — • 
King, that no subject man nor beast may own, 
Discrowned, undaughtered and alone — 
Yet shall the great God turn thy fate. 
And bring thee back into thy monarch state 
And majesty immaculate. 
Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn, 



n 



CORN. 59 

Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn 
Visions of golden treasuries of corn — 
Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart 
That manfully shall take thy part, 
And tend thee, 
And defend thee, 
With antique sinew and with modem art. 

SuNNYsiDE, Georgia, August, 1874. 



60 THE SYMPHONY. 



THE SYMPHONY. 

" O Trade ! O Trade ! would thou wert dead ! 

The Time needs heart — 'tis tired of head : 

We're all for love," the violins said. 
** Of what avail the rigorous tale 

Of bill for coin and box for bale ? 

Grant thee, O Trade ! thine uttermost hope : 

Level red gold with blue sky-slope, 

And base it deep as devils grope : 

When all 's done, what hast thou won 

Of the only sweet that's under the sun? 

Ay, canst thou buy a single sigh 

Of true love's least, least ecstasy ? " 

Then, with a bridegroom's heart-beats trembling. 

All the mightier strings assembling 

Ranged them on the violins' side 

As when the bridegroom leads the bride, 

And, heart in voice, together cried : 
** Yea, what avail the endless tale 

Of gain by cunning and plus by sale ? 

Look up the land, look down the land 

The poor, the poor, the poor, they stand 

Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand 

Against an inward-opening door 

That pressure tightens evermore : 

They sigh a monstrous foul-air sigh 

For the outside leagues of liberty, 

Where Art, sweet lark, translates the sky 

Into a heavenly melody. 

* Each day, all day ' (these poor folks say), 

* In the same old year-long, drear-long way, 



4 



THE SYMPHONY. 6 1 

We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, 

We sieve mine-meshes under the hills, 

And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills, 

To relieve, O God, what manner of ills ? — 

The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die ; 

And so do we, and the world 's a sty ; 

Hush, fellow-swine : why nuzzle and cry ? 

Swinchood hath no remedy 

Say many men, and hasten by, 

Clamping the nose and blinking the eye. 

But who said once, in the lordly tone, 

Man shall not live by bread alone 

But all that comcth from the Throne f 

Hath God said so ? 

But Trade saith No : 
And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say Go • 
There ^s plenty that can, if yon can^t : wc know. 
Move out, if you think you We underpaid. 
The poor are prolific ; we We not afraid j 

Trade is trade.' " 
Thereat this passionate protesting 
Meekly changed, and softened till 
It sank to sad requesting 
And suggesting sadder still : 
•* And oh, if men might some time see 
How piteous-false the poor decree 
That trade no more than trade must be ! 
Does business mean, Die, you — live, I? 
Then ' Trade is trade ' but sings a lie : 
'Tis only war grown miserly. 
If business is battle, name it so : 
War-crimes less will shame it so. 
And widows less will blame it so. 
Alas, for the poor to have some part 
In yon sweet living lands of Art, 



62 THE SYMPHONY. 

Makes problem not for head, but heart. 
Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it : 
Plainly the heart of a child could solve it." 

And then, as when from words that seem but rude 

We pass to silent pain that sits abrood 

Back in our heart's great dark and solitude, 

So sank the strings to gentle throbbing 

Of long chords change-marked with sobbing — 

Motherly sobbing, not distinctlier heard 

Than half wing-openings of the sleeping bird, 

Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred. 

Then stirring and demurring ceased, and lo ! 

Every least ripple of the strings' song-flow 

Died to a level with each level bow 

And made a great chord tranquil-surfaced so, 

As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go 

To linger in the sacred dark and green 

Where many boughs the still pool overlean 

And many leaves make shadow with their sheen. 

But presently 
A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly 
Upon the bosom of that harmony, 
And sailed and sailed incessantly. 
As if a petal from a wild-rose blown 
Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone 
And boatwise dropped o' the convex side 
And floated down the glassy tide 
And clarified and glorified 
The solemn spaces where the shadows bide. 
From the warm concave of that fluted note 
Somewhat, half song, half odor, forth did ilaatt 
As if a rose might somehow be a throat : 
" When Nature from her far-ofif glen 
Flutes her soft messages to men. 



THE SYMPHONY. 63 

The flute can say them o'er again ; 

Yea, Nature, singing sweet and lone, 
Breathes through life's strident polyphone 
The flute -voice in the world of tone. 

Sweet friends, 

Man's love ascends 
To finer and diviner ends 
Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends 
For I, e'en I, 
As here I lie, 
A petal on a harmony, 
Demand of Science whence and why 
Man's tender pain, man's inward cry, 
When he doth gaze on earth and sky ? 
I am not overbold : 

I hold 
Full powers from Nature manifold. 
I speak for each no-tonguM tree 
That, spring by spring, doth nobler be, 
And dumbly and most wistfully 
His mighty prayerful arms outspreads 
Above men's oft-unheeding heads. 
And his big blessing downward sheds. 
I speak for all-shaped blooms and leaves. 
Lichens on stones and moss on eaves, 
Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves ; 
Broad-fronded ferns and keen-leaved canes, 
And briery mazes bounding lanes, 
And marsh-plants, thirsty-cupped for rains, 
And milky stems and sugary veins ; 
For every long-armed woman-vine 
That round a piteous tree doth twine ; 
For passionate odors, and divine 
Pistils, and petals crystalline ; 
All purities of shady springs, 



64 THE SYMPHONY. 

All shynesses of film -winged things 

That fly from tree-trunks and bark-rings; 

All modesties of mountain-fawns 

That leap to covert from wild lawns, 

And tremble if the day but dawns ; 

All sparklings of small beady eyes 

Of birds, and sidelong glances wise 

Wherewith the jay hints tragedies ; 

All piquancies of prickly burs, 

And smoothnesses of downs and furs 

Of eiders and of minevers ; 

All limpid honeys that do lie 

At stamen-bases, nor deny 

The humming-birds' fine roguery. 

Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly ; 

All gracious curves of slender wings, 

Bark-mottlings, fibre-spiralings, 

Fern-wavings and leaf-flickerings ; 

Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bell 

Wherewith in every lonesome dell 

Time to himself his hours doth tell ; 

All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones, 

Wind-sighings, doves' melodious moans. 

And night's unearthly under-tones ; 

All placid lakes and waveless deeps. 

All cool reposing mountain-steeps. 

Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps ; — 

Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights, 

And warmths, and mysteries, and mights, 

Of Nature's utmost depths and heights, 

— These doth my timid tongue present, 

Their mouthpiece and leal instrument 

And servant, all love-eloquenr. 

I heard, when ^ All for love ' the violins cried ; 

So, Nature calls through all her system wide. 



THE SYMPHONY. 65 

Give me thy love, O man, so long denied. 

Much time is run, and man hath changed his ways, 

Since Nature, in the antique fable-days, 

Was hid from man's true love by proxy fays. 

False fauns and rascal gods that stole her praise. 

The nymphs, cold creatures of man's colder brain, 

Chilled Nature's streams till man's warm heart was fain 

Never to lave its love in them again. 

Later, a sweet Voice Love thy Jteighbor said ; 

Then first the bounds of neighborhood outspread 

Beyond all confines of old ethnic dread. 

Vainly the Jew might wag his covenant head : 

M// men are neighbors ,^ so the sweet Voice said. 

So, when man's arms had circled all man's race. 

The liberal compass of his warm embrace 

Stretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space ; 

With hands a-grope he felt smooth Nature's grace. 

Drew her to breast and kissed her sweetheart face : 

Yea man found neighbors in great hills and trees 

And streams and clouds and suns and birds and bees. 

And throbbed with neighbor-loves in loving these. 

But oh, the poor! the poor! the poor! 

That stand by the inward-opening door 

Trade's hand doth tighten ever more. 

And sigh their monstrous foul-air sigh 

For the outside hills of liberty, 

Where Nature spreads her wild blue sky 

For Art to make into melody ! 

Thou Trade ! thou king of the modern days I 

Change thy ways, 

Change thy ways ; 
Let the sweaty laborers file 

A little while, 

A little while. 
Where Art and Nature sing and smile. 



56 THE SYMPHONY. 

Trade ! is thy heart all dead, all dead ? 
And hast thou nothing but a head ? 
I 'm all for heart," the flute-voice saic?. 
And into sudden silence fled, 
Like as a blush that while 'tis red 
Dies to a still, still white instead. 

Thereto a thrilling calm succeeds, 
Till presently the silence breeds 
A little breeze among the reeds 
That seems to blow by sea-marsh weeds : 
Then from the gentle stir and fret 
Sings out the melting clarionet, 
Like as a lady sings while yet 
Her eyes with salty tears are wet. 

*' O Trade ! O Trade ! " the Lady said, 

" I too will wish thee utterly dead 
If all thy heart is in thy head. 
For O my God ! and O my God ! 
What shameful ways have women trod 
At beckoning of Trade's golden rod ! 
Alas when sighs are traders' lies. 
And heart's-ease eyes and violet eyes 

Are merchandise ! 
O purchased lips that kiss with pain ! 
O cheeks coin-spotted with smirch and stain I 
O trafficked hearts that break in twain ! 
— 'And yet what wonder at my sisters' crime ? 
So hath Trade withered up Love's sinewy prime, 
Men love not women as in olden time. 
Ah, not in these cold merchantable days 
Deem men their life an opal gray, where plays 
The one red Sweet of gracious ladies'-praise. 
Now, comes a suitor with sharp prying eye — 
Says, Here^ you Lady, if you '// sell, I *// buy : 



THE SYMPHONY. 67 

Come, heart for heart — a trade f What / weeping f -why f 

Shame on siidi wooers' dapper mercery I 

I would my lover kneeling at my feet 

In humble manliness should cry, O sweet I 

I know not if thy heart my heart will greet .* 

/ ask not if thy love tny loth- can meet : 

IVhaie'er thy worshipful soft tongue shall say, 

I HI kiss thine answer, be it yea or nay : 

I do but know I love thee, and I pray 

To be thy knight until my dying day. 

Woe him that cunning trades in hearts contrives ( 

Base love good women to base loving drives. 

If men loved larger, larger were our lives ; 

And wooed they nobler, won they nobler wives.*' 

There thrust the bold straightforward horn 
To battle for that lady lorn, 
With heartsome voice of mellow scorn, 
Like any knight in knighthood's morn. 

** Now comfort thee," said he, 
" Fair Lady. 
For God shall right thy grievous wrong. 
And man shall sing thee a true-love song, 
Voiced in act his whole life long, 

Yea, all thy sweet life long, 
Fair Lady. 
Where 's he that craftily hath said. 
The day of chivalry is dead ? 
I Ml prove that lie upon his head, 

Or 1 will die instead, 
Fair Lady. 
Is Honor gone into his grave ? 
Hath Faith become a caitiff knav«, 
And Selfliood turned into a slave 

To work in Mammon's cave. 



66 THE SYMPHONY. 

Fair Lady ? 
Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again? 
Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slain 
All great contempts of mean-got gain 

And hates of inward stain, 
Fair Lady ? 
For aye shall name and fame be sold, 
And place be hugged for the sake of gold^ 
And smirch-robed Justice feebly scold 

At Crime all money-bold, 
Fair Lady ? 
Shall self-wrapt husbands aye forget 
Kiss-pardons for the daily fret 
Wherewith sweet wifely eyes are wet- 
Blind to lips kiss-wise set — 
Fair Lady ? 
Shall lovers higgle, heart for heart. 
Till wooing grows a trading mart 
Where much for little, and all for part. 

Make love a cheapening art. 
Fair Lady ? 
Shall woman scorch for a single sin 
That her betrayer may revel in, 
And she be burnt, and he but grin 

When that the flames begin, 
Fair Lady ? 
Shall ne'er prevail the woman's plea, 
JVe maids would far , far whiter be 
If that our eyes might sometimes see 

Men maids in ptirity, 
Fair Lady ? 
Shall Trade aye salve his conscience-aches 
With jibes at Chivalry's old mistakes — 
The wars that o'erhot knighthood makes 

For Christ's and ladies' sakes, 



THE SYMPHONY. 69 

Fair Lady ? 
Now by each knight that e'er hath prayed 
To fight like a man and love like a maid, 
Since Pembroke's life, as Pembroke's blade, 
I* the scabbard, death, was laid, 

Fair Lady, 
I dare avouch my faith is bright 
That God doth right and God hath might. 
Nor time hath changed His hair to white. 
Nor His dear love to spite, 

Fair Lady. 
I doubt no doubts : I strive, and shrive my clay. 
And fight my fight in the patient modern way 
For true love and for thee — ah me ! and pray 
To be thy knight until my dying day, 

Fair Lady." 
Made end that knightly horn, and spurred away 
Into the thick of the melodious fray. 



And then the hautboy played and smiled. 
And sang like any large-eyed child. 
Cool-hearted and all undefiled. 

*' Huge Trade ! " he said, 
Would thou wouldst lift me on thy head 
And run where'er my finger led ! 
Once said a Man — and wise was He — 
Never shall thoti Ihe heavens see, 
Save as a liltle child thou be." 
Then o'er sea-lashings of commingling tunes 
The ancient wise bassoons. 

Like weird 

Gray-beard 
Old harpers sitting on the high sea-dunes. 

Chanted runes : 



70 THE SYMPHONY. 

" Bright-waved gain, gray-waved loss, 
The sea of all doth lash and toss, 
One wave forward and one across : 
But now 'twas trough, now 'tis crest, 
And worst doth foam and flash to best, 
And curst to blest. 



I 



( 



Life! Life ! thou sea-fugue, writ from east to west 

Love, Love alone can pore t 

On thy dissolving score j 

Of harsh half-phrasings, * 

Blotted ere writ, ■^ 

And double erasings 
Of chords most fit. 

Yea, Love, sole music-master blest. 

May read thy weltering palimpsest. 

To follow Time's dying melodies through, 

And never to lose the old in the new. 

And ever to solve the discords true — 
Love alone can do. 

And ever Love hears the poor-folks' crying, 

And ever Love hears the women's sighing, 

And ever sweet knighthood's death-defying, 

And ever wise childhood's deep implying, 

But never a trader's glozing and lying. 



And yet shall Love himself be heard, 
Though long deferred, though long deferred 
O'er the modern waste a dove hath whirred i 
Music is Love in search of a word." y 

Baltimore, 1875. 



MY SPRINGS. 71 



MY SPRINGS. 

In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know 
Two springs that with unbroken flow 
Forever pour their lucent streams 
Into my soul's far Lake of Dreams. 



Not larger than two eyes, they lie 
Beneath the many-changing sky 
And mirror all of life and time, 
—Serene and dainty pantomime. 



Shot through with lights of stars and dawns, 
And shadowed sweet by ferns and fawns, 
— Thus heaven and earth together vie 
Their shining depths to sanctify. 



Always when the large Form of Love 
Is hid by storms that rage above, 
I gaze in my two springs and see 
Love in his very verity. 



Always when Faith with stifling stress 
Of grief hath died in bitterness, 
I gaze in my two springs and see 
A Faith that smiles immortally. 



72 MY SPRINGS. 

Always when Charity and Hope, 
In darkness bounden, feebly grope, 
I gaze in my two springs and see 
A Light that sets my captives free. 



Always, when Art on perverse wing 
Flies where I cannot hear him sing, 
I gaze in my two springs and see 
A charm that brings him back to mCr 



When Labor faints, and Glory fails, 
And coy Reward in sighs exhales, 
I gaze in my two springs and see 
Attainment full and heavenly. 



O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they, 

— My springs from out whose shining gray 

Issue the sweet celestial streams 

That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams. 



Oval and large and passion -pure 
And gray and wise and honor-sure ; 
Soft as a dying violet-breath 
Yet calmly unafraid of death ; 



Thronged, like two dove-cotes of gray doves, 
With wife's and mother's and poor-folk's loves, 
And home-loves and high glory-loves 
And science-loves and story-loves. 



MY SPRINGS, 73 



And loves for all that God and man 
In art and nature make or plan, 
And lady-loves for spidery lace 
And broideries and supple grace 



And diamonds and the whole sweet round 
Of littles that large life compound. 
And loves for God and God's bare truth, 
And loves for Magdalen and Ruth, 



Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete- 
Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet, 
— I marvel that God made you mine, 
For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine! 



Baltimore, 1874. 
4 



74 IN ABSENCE. 



IN ABSENCE. 

I. 

The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain 
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart. 

Love ! O Love ! across the gray-waved main 

To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart 

1 ask my God if e'en in His sweet place, 
Where, by one waving of a wistful wing, 

My soul could straightway tremble face to face 

With thee, with thee, across the stellar ring — 
Yea, where thine absence I could ne'er bewail 

Longer than lasts that little blank of bliss 
When lips draw back, with recent pressure pale, 
To round and redden for another kiss — 

Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for thee 
What time the drear kiss-intervals must be ? 



II. 



So do the mottled formulas of Sense 

Glide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime ; 
So errors breed in reeds and grasses dense 

That bank our singing rivulets of rhyme. 
By Sense rule Space and Time ; but in God's Land 

Their intervals are not, save such as lie 
Betwixt successive tones in concords bland 

Whose loving distance makes the harmony. 



IN ABSENCE. 75 

Ah, there shall never come 'twixt me and thee 

Gross dissonances of the mile, the year ; 
But in the multichords of ecstasy 
Our souls shall mingle, yet be featured clear, 
And absence, wrought to intervals divine, 
Shall part, yet link, thy nature's tone and mme. 



III. 



Look down the shining peaks of all my days 

Base-hidden in the valleys of deep nigl.i, 
So shalt thou see the heights and depths of praise 

My love would render unto love's delight ; 
For I would make each day an Alp sublime 

Of passionate snow, white-hot yet icy-clear, 
—One crystal of the true-loves of all time 

Spiring the world's prismatic atmosphere ; 
And I would make each night an awful vale 

Deep as thy soul, obscure as modesty, 
With every star in heaven trembling pale 

O'er sweet profounds where only Love can see. 

Oh, runs not thus the lesson thou hast taught ? — 
When life 's all love, 'tis life ; aught else, 'tis naught 



IV. 



Let no man say, He at his lady'' s feet 

Lays worship that to Heaven alone belongs j 
Yea, swings the incense that for God is meet 

In flippant censers of light lover'' s songs. 
Who says it, knows not God, nor love, nor thee ; 

For love is large as is yon heavenly dome : 
In love's great blue, each passion is full free 

To fly his favorite flight and build his home. 



']6 IN ABSENCE. 

Did e'er a lark with skyward-pointing beak 

Stab by mischance a level-flying dove ? 
Wife-love flies level, his dear mate to seek : 
God-love darts straight into the skies above- 
Crossing, the windage of each other's wings 
But speeds them both upon their journeyings, 

Baltimore, 1874. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT. /7 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 



I. 

O Age that half believ'st thou half believ'st, 

Half doubt'st the substance of thine own half doubt. 
And, half perceiving that thou half perceiv'st, 

Stand'st at thy temple door, heart in, head out ! 
Lo ! while thy heart's within, helping the choir, 

Without, thine eyes range up and down the time, 
Blinking at o'er-bright science, smit with desire 

To see and not to see. Hence, crime on crime. 
Yea, if the Christ (called thine) now paced yon street, 

Thy halfness hot with His rebuke would swell ; 
Legions of scribes would rise and run and beat 

His fair intolerable Wholeness twice to hell. 

Nay (so, dear Heart, thou whisperest in my soul), 
'T is a half time, yet Time will make it whole. 



II. 



Now at thy soft recalling voice I rise 

Where thought is lord o'er Time's complete estate, 
Like as a dove from out the gray sedge flies 

To tree-tops green where cooes his heavenly mate. 
From these clear coverts high and cool I see 

How every time with every time is knit, 
And each to all is mortised cunningly, 

And none is sole or whole, yet all are fit. 
Thus, if this Age but as a comma show 



78 ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 

'Twixt weightier clauses of large -worded years, 
My calmer soul scorns not the mark : I know 

This crooked point Time's complex sentence clears. 
Yet more I learn while, Friend ! I sit by thee : 
Who sees all time, sees all eternity. 



III. 



If I do ask. How God can dumbness keep 

While Sin creeps grinning through His house of Time, 
Stabbing His saintliest children in their sleep. 

And staining holy walls with clots of crime ? — 
Or, How may He whose wish but names a fact 

Refuse what miser's-scanting of supply 
Would richly glut each void where man hath lacked 

Of grace or bread ? — or, How may Power deny 
Wholeness to th' almost-folk that hurt our hope — 

These heart-break Hamlets who so barely fail 
In life or art that but a hair's more scope 

Had set them fair on heights they ne'er may scale ?— 
Somehow by thee, dear Love, I win content : 
Thy Perfect stops th' Imperfect's argument. 



IV. 



By the more height of thy sweet stature grown. 

Twice-eyed with thy gray vision set in mine, 
I ken far lands to wifeless men unknown, 

I compass stars for one-sexed eyes too fine. 
No text on sea-horizons cloudily writ, 

No maxim vaguely starred in fields or skies, 
But this wise thou-in-me deciphers it : 

Oh, thou 'rt the Height of heights, the Eye of eyes. 



I 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 79 

Not hardest Fortune's most unbounded stress 
Can blind my soul nor hurl it from on high, 
Possessing thee, the self of loftiness, 
And very light that Light discovers by. 

Howe'er thou turn'st, wrong Earth ! still Love 's in sight : 
For we are taller than the breadth of night. 

Baltimorb, 1874-5. 



80 LAUS MARI^. 



LAUS MARINE. 

Across the brook of Time man leaping goes 

On stepping-stones of epochs, that uprise 
Fixed, memorable, midst broad shallow flows 

Of neutrals, kill-times, sleeps, indifferencies. 
So twixt each morn and night rise salient heaps : 

Some cross with but a zigzag, jaded pace 
From meal to meal : some with convulsive leaps 

Shake the green tussocks of malign disgrace : 
And some advance by system and deep art 

O'er vantages of wealth, place, learning, tact. 
But thou within thyself, dear manifold heart, 

Dost bind all epochs in one dainty Fact. 
Oh, sweet, my pretty sum of history, 
I leapt the breadth of Time in loving thee I 

Baltimokb, 1874-5 



SPECIAL PLEADING. 8 1 



SPECIAL PLEADING. 

Time, hurry my Love to me : 

Haste, haste 1 Lov'st not good company ? 
Here 's but a heart-break sandy waste 
'Twixt Now and Then. Why, killing haste 

Were best, dear Time, for thee, for thee ! 

Oh, would that I might divine 
Thy name beyond the zodiac sign 

Wherefrom our times-to-come descend. 

He called thee Sometime. Change it, friend 
Now-time sounds so much more fine ! 

Sweet Sometime, fly fast to me : 
Poor Now-time sits in the Lonesome-tree 
And broods as gray as any dove. 
And calls. When wilt thou come, O Lovef 
And pleads across the waste to thee. 

Good Moment, that giv'st him me, 
Wast ever in love ? Maybe, maybe 
Thou 'It be this heavenly velvet time 
When Day and Night as rhyme and rhymP 
Set lip to lip dusk-modestly ; 

Or haply some noon afar, 

— O life's top bud, mixt rose and star, 
How ever can thine utmost sweet 
Be star-consummate, rose-complete. 

Till thy rich reds full opened are ? 
4* 



82 SPECIAL PLEADING. 

Well, be it dusk-time or noon-time, 
I ask but one small boon, Time : 

Come thou in night, come thou in day, 
I care not, I care not : have thine own way. 
But only, but only, come soon, Time. 

Baltimore, 1875. 



I 



THE BEE. 



THE BEE. 

What time I paced, at pleasant mom, 

A deep and dewy wood, 
I heard a mellow hunting-horn 

Make dim report of Dian's lustihood 
Far down a heavenly hollow. 
Mine ear, though fain, had pain to follow : 

Taraf it twanged, tara-tara ! it blew, 

Yet wavered oft, and flew 
Most ficklewise about, or here, or there, 
A music now from earth and now from air. 

But on a sudden, lo ! 

I marked a blossom shiver to and fro 
With dainty inward storm ; and there within 
A down-drawn trump of yellow jessamine 
A bee 

Thrust up its sad-gold body lustily, 
All in a honey madness hotly bound 
On blissful burglary. 
A cunning sound 
In that wing-music held me : down I lay 
In amber shades of many a golden spray, 
Where looping low with languid arms the Vine 
In wreaths of ravishment did overtwine 
Her kneeling Live-Oak, thousand-fold to plight 
Herself unto her own true stalwart knight. 

As some dim blur of distant music nears 
The long-desiring sense, and slowly clears 



b4 THE BEE. 

To forms of time and apprehensive tune, 
So, as I lay, full soon 
Interpretation throve : the bee's fanfare, 
Through sequent films of discourse vague as air, 
Passed to plain words, while, fanning faint perfume. 
The bee o'erhung a rich, unrifled bloom : 
" O Earth, fair lordly Blossom, soft a-shine 
Upon the star-pranked universal vine. 
Hast nought for me ? 
To thee 
Come I, a poet, hereward haply blown. 
From out another worldflower lately flown. 
Wilt ask. What profit e^er a poet brings f 
He beareth starry stuff about his wings 
To pollen thee and sting thee fertile : nay. 
If still thou narrow thy contracted way, 
— Worldflower, if thou refuse me — 
— Worldflower, if thou abuse me, 
And hoist thy stamen's spear-point high 
To wound my wing and mar mine eye — 
Nathless I '11 drive me to thy deepest sweet. 
Yea, richlier shall that pain the pollen beat 
From me to thee, for oft these pollens be 
Fine dust from wars that poets wage for thee. 
But, O beloved Earthbloom soft a-shine 
Upon the universal Jessam'ine, 
Prithee, abuse me not, 
Prithee, refuse me not, 
Yield, yield the heartsome honey love to me 

Hid in thy nectary ! " 
And as I sank into a dimmer dream 
The pleading bee's song-burthen sole did seenr 
** Hast ne'er a honey-drop of love for me 
In thy huge nectary ? " 
Tampa, Florida, 1877. 



THE HARLEQUIN OF DREAMS. 



THE HARLEQUIN OF DREAMS. 

Swift, through some trap mine eyes have never found 
Dim-panelled in the painted scene of Sleep, 
Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap 

Upon my spirit's stage. Then Sight and Sound, 

Then Space and Time, then Language, Mete and Bound 
And all familiar Forms that firmly keep 
Man's reason in the road, change faces, peep 

Betwixt the legs and mock the daily round. 

Yet thou canst more than mock : sometimes my tears 
At midnight break through bounden lids — a sign 
Thou hast a heart : and oft thy little leaven 

Of dream-taught wisdom works me bettered years. 
In one night witch, saint, trickster, fool divine, 
I think thou 'rt Jester at the Court of Heaven t 

Baltimorb, 1878. 



86 STREET-CRIES. 



1 



STREET-CRIES. 

Oft seems the Time a market-town 
Where many merchant-spirits meet 

Who up and down and up and down 
Cry out along the street 

Their needs, as wares ; one thus, one so: 
Till all the ways are full of sound : 

— But still come rain, and sun, and snow, 
And still the world goes round. 



REMONSTRANCE. 

" Opinion, let me alone : I am not thine. 
Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear 

To feature me my Lord by rule and line. 
Thou canst not measure Mistress Nature's hair, 

Not one sweet inch : nay, if thy sight is sharp, 
Would'st count the strings upon an angel's harp ? 
Forbear, forbear. 

"Oh let me love my Lord more fathom deep 
Than there is line to sound with : let me love 
My fellow not as men that mandates keep : 
Yea, all that 's lovable, below, above. 

That let me love by heart, by heart, because 
(Free from the penal pressure of the laws) 
I find it fair. 



REMONSTRANCE. 8; 

" The tears I weep by day and bitter night. 
Opinion ! for thy sole salt vintage fall. 

— As morn by morn I rise with fresh delight. 
Time through my casement cheerily doth call 
* Nature is new,' 'tis birthday every day, 
Come feast with me, let no man say me nay, 
Whate'er befall.' 

"So fare I forth to feast : I sit beside 
Some brother bright : but, ere good-morrow's passed, 

Burly Opinion wedging in hath cried 
Thou shalt not sit by us, to break thy fast, 

Save to our Rubric thou subscribe and swear — 
Religion hath blue eyes and yellow hair : 
She 's Saxon, all.' 

" Then, hard a-hungered for my brother's grace 
Till well-nigh fain to swear his folly 's true, 

In sad dissent I turn my longing face 
To him that sits on the left : ' Brother, — with you? ' 
• — ' Nay, not with me, save thou subscribe and sweat 
Religion hath black eyes and raveti hair : 
Nought else is true.' 

" Debarred of banquets that my heart could make 
With every man on every day of life, 

1 homeward turn, my fires of pain to slake 
In deep endearments of a worshipped wife. 

* I love thee well, dear Love,' quoth she, ' and yet 
Would that thy creed with mine completely met, 
As one, not two.' 

"Assassin ! Thief! Opinion, 'tis thy work. 
By Church, by throne, by hearth, by every good 

That's in the Town of Time, I see thee lurk. 
And e'er some shadow stays where thou hast stood. 



88 STREET-CRIES. 

Thou hand'st sweet Socrates his hemlock sour ; 
Thou sav'st Barabbas in that hideous hour, 
And stabb'st the good 

** Deliverer Christ ; thou rack'st the souls of men ; 
Thou tossest girls to lions and boys to flames ; 

Thou hew'st Crusader down by Saracen ; 
Thou buildest closets full of secret shames ; 
Indifferent cruel, thou dost blow the blaze 
Round Ridley or Servetus ; all thy days 
Smell scorched ; I would 

** — Thou base-born Accident of time and place— » 
Bigot Pretender unto Judgment's throne — 

Bastard, that claimest with a cunning face 
Those rights the true, true Son of Man doth own 
By Love's authority — thou Rebel cold 
At head of civil wars and quarrels old — 
Thou Knife on a throne — 

" I would thou left'st me free, to live with love, 
And faith, that through the love of love doth find 

My Lord's dear presence in the stars above, 
The clods below, the flesh without, the mind 
Within, the bread, the tear, the smile. 
Opinion, damned Intriguer, gray with guile, 
Let me alone." 

Baltimore, 1878-9. 



HOW LOVE LOOKED FOR HELL. 89 

II. 

THE SHIP OF EARTH. 

" Thou Ship of Earth, with Death, and Birth, and Life, and 
Sex aboard, 
And fires of Desires burning hotly in the hold, 
I fear thee, O ! I fear thee, for I hear the tongue and sword 
At battle on the deck, and the wild mutineers are bold ! 

" The dewdrop morn may fall from off the petal of the sky, 
But all the deck is wet with blood and stains the crystal 
red. 
A pilot, God, a pilot ! for the helm is left awry, 

And the best sailors in the ship lie there among the 
dead ! " 

Prattvillb, Alabama, 1868. 

III. 

HOW LOVE LOOKED FOR HELL. 

** To heal his heart of long-time pain 

One day Prince Love for to travel was fain 

With Ministers Mind and Sense. 
' Now what to thee most strange may be ? ' 
Quoth Mind and Sense. ' All things above, 
One curious thing I first would see — 
Hell,' quoth Love. 

** Then Mind rode in and Sense rode out: 
They searched the ways of man about. 
First frightfully groaneth Sense. 



yo STREET-CRIES. 

"Tis here, 'tis here,' and spurreth in fear 
To the top of the hill that hangeth above 
And plucketh the Prince : ' Come, come, 'tis here — 
' Where ? ' quoth Love— 

•"' ' Not far, not far,' said shivering Sense 
As tjiey rode on. ' A short way hence, 

— But seventy paces hence : 
Look, King, dost see where suddenly 
This road doth dip from the height above ? 
Cold blew a mouldy wind by me ' 

(' Cold ? ' quoth Love) 

*' ' As I rode down, and the River was black, 
And yon-side, lo ! an endless wrack 

And rabble of souls,' sighed Sense, 
' Their eyes upturned and begged and burned 
In brimstone lakes, and a Hand above 
Beat back the hands that upward yearned — ' 
' Nay ! ' quoth Love — 

" ' Yea, yea, sweet Prince ; thyself shalt see. 
Wilt thou but down this slope with me ; 

'Tis palpable,' whispered Sense. 
— At the foot of the hill a living rill 
Shone, and the lilies shone white above ; 

* But now 'twas black, 'twas a river, this rill,' 

(' Black ? ' quoth Love) 

" * Ay, black, but lo ! the lilies grow, 
And yon-side where was woe, was woe, 

— Where the rabble of souls,' cried Sense, 

* Did shrivel and turn and beg and burn. 
Thrust back in the brimstone from above— 
Is banked of violet, rose, and fern : ' 

' How ? ' quoth Love : 



now LOVE LOOKED FOR HELL. 9I 

' For lakes of pain, yon pleasant plain 
Of woods and grass and yellow grain 

Doth ravish the soul and sense : 
And never a sigh beneath the sky, 
And folk that smile and gaze above — ' 
* But saw'st thou here, with thine own eye. 
Hell ? ' quoth Love. 



« ( 



I saw true hell with mine own eye, 
True hell, or light hath told a lie, 

True, verily,' quoth stout Sense. 
Then Love rode round and searched the ground. 
The caves below, the hills above ; 
* But I cannot find where thou hast found 

Hell,' quoth Love. 

" There, while they stood in a green wood 
And marvelled still on 111 and Good, 

Came suddenly Minister Mind. 
'In the heart of sin doth hell begin : 
'Tis not below, 'tis not above. 
It lieth within, it lieth within : ' 
(' Where ? ' quoth Love) 

'■* ' I saw a man sit by a corse ; 

I/eU 's in the tnnrderer^ s breast : remorse f 

Thus clamored his mind to his mind : 
Not fleshly dole is the sinner's goal, 
Hell's not below, nor yet above, 
'Tis fixed in the ever-damned soul — ' 

* Fixed ? ' quoth Love — 

''^ • Fixed : follow me, would'st thou but see : 
He weepeth under yon willow tree, 

Fast chained to his corse,' quoth Mind. 



92 sfREET-CRIES. 

Full soon they passed, for they rode fast, 
Where the piteous willow bent above. 

* Now shall I see at last, at last, 

Hell,' quoth Love. 

** There when they came Mind suffered shame ; 

* These be the same and not the same,' 

A-wondering whispered Mind. 
Lo, face by face two spirits pace 
Where the blissful willow waves above : 
One saith : ' Do me a friendly grace — ' 

(' Grace ! ' quoth Love) 

" * Read me two Dreams that linger long, 
Dim as returns of old-time song 

That flicker about the mind. 
I dreamed (how deep in mortal sleep !) 
I struck thee dead, then stood above, 
With tears that none but dreamers weep ; ' 

' Dreams,' quoth Love ; 

" ' In dreams, again, I plucked a flower 

That clung with pain and stung with power, 
Yea, nettled me, body and mind.' 

* 'Twas the nettle of sin, 'twas medicine ; 
No need nor seed of it here Above ; 

In dreams of hate true loves begin.' 
* True,' quoth Love. 

" * Now strange,' quoth Sense, and ' Strange,' quoth Mind 

* We saw it, and yet 'tis hard to find, 

— But we saw it,' quoth Sense and Mind. 
Stretched on the ground, beautiful-crowned 
Of the piteous willow that wreathed above. 
But I cannot find where ye have found 

Hell,' quoth Love." 
Baltimore, 1878-9. 



lYRANNY. 93 

IV. 

TYRANNY. 

" Spring-germs, spring-germs, 
I charge you by your life, go back to death. 
This glebe is sick, this wind is foul of breath. 
Stay : feed the worms. 

" Oh ! every clod 
Is faint, and falters from the war of growth 
And crumbles in a dreary dust of sloth, 
Unploughed, untrod. 

" What need, what need. 
To hide with flowers the curse upon the hills, 
Or sanctify the banks of sluggish rills 
Where vapors breed ? 

" And — if needs must — 
Advance, O Summer-heats ! upon the land. 
And bake the bloody mould to shards and sand 
And dust. 

" Before your birth. 
Burn up, O Roses ! with your dainty flame. 
Good Violets, sweet Violets, hide shame 
Below the earth. 

" Ye silent Mills, 
Reject the bitter kindness of the moss. 
O Farms ! protest if any tree emboss 
The barren hills. 



94 STREET-CRIES. 

" Young Trade is dead, 
And swart Work sullen sits in the hillside fern. 
And folds his arms that find no bread to earn. 
And bows his head. 

" Spring-germs, spring-germs, 
Albeit the towns have left you place to play, 
I charge you, sport not. Winter owns to-day, 
Stay : feed the worms." 

PRATTVILLK, ALABAMA, 1868. 



V. 

LIFE AND SONG. t 

** If life were caught by a clarionet, 

And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, 
Should thrill its joy and trill its fret, i 

And utter its heart in every deed, '- 

"Then would this breathing clarionet 
Type what the poet fain would be ; 
For none o' the singers ever yet 
Has wholly lived his minstrelsy, 

** Or clearly sung his true, true thought, 
Or utterly bodied forth his life. 
Or out of life and song has wrought 
The perfect one of man and wife ; 

" Or lived and sung, that Life and Song 
Might each express the other's all, 
Careless if life or art were long 

Since both were one, to stand or fall? 



TO RICHARD NVAGNER. 95 

' So that the wonder struck the crowd, 

Who shouted it about the land : 
His song was otily living aloud, 
His work, a singing with his hand / " 



i868. 



VI. 

TO RICHARD WAGNER. 

" I SAW a sky of stars that rolled in grime. 

All glory twinkled through some sweat of fight, 
From each tall chimney of the roaring time 

That shot his fire far up the sooty night 
Mixt fuels — Labor's Right and Labor's Crime — 

Sent upward throb on throb of scarlet light 
Till huge hot blushes in the heavens blent 

With golden hues of Trade's high firmament. 

" Fierce burned the furnaces ; yet all seemed well, 
Hope dreamed rich music in the rattling mills. 
' Ye foundries, ye shall cast my church a bell,' 

Loud cried the Future from the farthest hills : 
* Ye groaning forces, crack me every shell 

Of customs, old constraints, and narrow ills ; 
Thou, lithe Invention, wake and pry and guess. 
Till thy deft mind invents me Happiness.' 

•' And I beheld high scaffoldings of creeds 

Crumbling from round Religion's perfect Fane : 
And a vast noise of rights, wrongs, powers, needs, 

— Cries of new Faiths that called ' This Way is plain,' 
— Grindings of upper against lower greeds — 

— Fond sighs for old things, shouts for new, — did reign 
Below that stream of golden fire that broke, 

Mottled with red, above the seas of smoke. 



96 STREET- CRIES. 

" Hark ! Gay fanfares from halls of old Romance 

Strike through the clouds of clamor : who be these 
That, paired in rich processional, advance 

From darkness o'er the murk mad factories 
Into yon flaming road, and sink, strange Ministrants I 

Sheer down to earth, with many minstrelsies 
And motions fine, and mix about the scene 

And fill the Time with forms of ancient mien ? 

" Bright ladies and brave knights of Fatherland ; 

Sad mariners, no harbor e'er may hold, 
A swan soft floating tow'rds a magic strand ; 

Dim ghosts, of earth, air, water, fire, steel, gold, 
Wind, grief, and love ; a lewd and lurking band 

Of Powers — dark Conspiracy, Cunning cold, 
Gray Sorcery ; magic cloaks and rings and rods ; 

Valkyries, heroes, Rhinemaids, giants, gods I 

" O Wagner, westward bring thy heavenly art. 

No trifler thou : Siegfried and Wotan be 
Names for big ballads of the modern heart. 

Thine ears hear deeper than thine eyes can see. 
Voice of the monstrous mill, the shouting mart. 

Not less of airy cloud and wave and tree, 
Thou, thou, if even to thyself unknown. 

Hast power to say the Time in terms of tone.** 

1877. 



u SONG OF LOVE. gj 



VII. 

A SONG OF LOVE. 

" Hey, rose, just born 
Twin to a thorn ; 
Was't so with you, O Love and Scorn? 

" Sweet eyes that smiled, 
Now wet and wild ; 
O Eye and Tear — mother and child. 

" Well : Love and Pain 
Be kinsfolk twain : 
Yet would, Oh would I could love again. 
c 



tS to BEETHOVEN. 



TO BEETHOVEN. 

In o'er-strict calyx lingering, 

Lay music's bud too long unblown, 
Till thou, Beethoven, breathed the spring ; 

Then bloomed the perfect rose of tone. 

Psalmist of the weak, the strong, 
O Troubadour of love and strife, 

Co-Litanist of right and wrong. 

Sole Hymner of the whole of life, ^ 

1 know not how, I care not why, — 
Thy music sets my world at ease, 

And melts my passion's mortal cry 
In satisfying symphonies. 

It soothes my accusations sour 

'Gainst thoughts that fray the restless soul i 
The stain of death ; the pain of power ; 

The lack of love 'twixt part and whole ; 

i 

The yea-nay of Freewill and Fate, ^ 

Whereof both cannot be, yet are ; t 

The praise a poet wins too late 

Who starves from earth into a star ; i 

■I 
The lies that serve great parties well, ' 

While truths but give their Christ a cross; 

The loves that send warm souls to hell, ^ 

While cold-blood neuters take no loss ; '< 



TO BEETHOVEN. 99 

Th' indifferent smile that nature's grace 

On Jesus, Judas, pours alike ; 
Th' indifferent frown on nature's face 

When luminous lightnings strangely strike 

The sailor praying on his knees 

And spare his mate that's cursing God ; 

How babes and widows starve and freeze. 
Yet Nature will not stir a clod ; 

Why Nature blinds us in each act 

Yet makes no law in mercy bend, 
No pitfall from our feet retract. 

No storm cry out Take shelter , friend j 

Why snakes that crawl the earth should ply 

Rattles, that whoso hears may shun. 
While serpent lightnings in the sky, 

But rattle when the deed is done ; 

How truth can e'er be good for them 
That have not eyes to bear its strength, 

And yet how stern our lights condemn 
Delays that lend the darkness length ; 

To know all things, save knowingness ; 

To grasp, yet loosen, feeling's rein ; 
To waste no manhood on success ; 

To look with pleasure upon pain ; 

Though teased by small mixt social claims, 

To lose no large simplicity. 
And midst of clear-seen crimes and shames 

To move with manly purity ; 



lOO TO BEETHOVEN. 

To held, with keen, yet loving eyes, 
Art's realm from Cleverness apart, 

To know the Clever good and wise, 
Yet haunt the lonesome heights of Art 

Psalmist of the weak, the strong, 
O Troubadour of love and strife, 

Co-Litanist of right and wrong. 
Sole Hymner of the whole of life, 

1 know not how, I care not why, 

Thy music brings this broil at ease, 
And melts my passion's mortal cry 
In satisfying symphonies. 

Yea, it forgives me all my sins. 

Fits life to love like rhyme to rhyme^ 

And tunes the task each day begins 
By the last trumpet-note of Time. 



%n g^vou -J^annette g^alf^^luerBacf). loi 



5lii ^rau 9lanncttc ^atfs5lucrbac^» 

?n§ bu im Baal mit beiner t)immlifd)en i^unft 

S3eett)0l)en geigft, imb feinem 2Si(Icn nat^ 
5J?it ben se^n t^inofvn fiibrft bcr i^eute ©unft, 

3cl)n Bungcn [agcii maa ber DJJcifter fprad^. 
©diauenb bid) an, i(^ feV/ bciB nid)t aflein 

®u jifeeft : jefet Ijcrab bie 'Jonc sic^n 
S8eett)0t)en§ (Scift : er [tet)t bci bir, ganj rein : 

giir bid) mit 33atcra ©tolj fein' 'iJlugcn Qlut)n : 
®r faflt, „^d) I)6vte bid) au>o C">inimeh;'liift, 

®ie fommt \a nd()er, mo cin .^ilnftlcr fpielt; 
3Jiein ^inb (id) fagte) mid) 3111- (Srbc nift : 

^a, tDcil mein ^rm fein ^inb im Seben l^ielt, 
©ott I)ot mir bid) nad) meincm %ob gegeben, 

^Jannettc, 3:od)ter ! bid), mcin jraeiteS Seben ! " 

aSaltimpre, 1878. 



102 TO NANNETTE FALK-AUERBACH. 



TO NANNETTE FALK-AUERBACH. 

Oft as I hear thee, wrapt in heavenly art, 

The massive message of Beethoven tell 
With thy ten fingers to the people's heart 

As if ten tongues told news of heaven and hell, — 
Gazing on thee, I mark that not alone, 

Ah, not alone, thou sittest : there, by thee, 
Beethoven's self, dear living lord of tone, 

Doth stand and smile upon thy mastery. 
Full fain and fatherly his great eyes glow : 

He says, " From Heaven, my child, I heard thee call 
(For, where an artist plays, the sky is low) : 

Yea, since my lonesome life did lack love's all, 
In death, God gives me thee : thus, quit of pain. 
Daughter, Nannette ! in thee I live again." 

Baltimore, 1878, 



TO OUR MOCKING-BIRD. IO3 



TO OUR MOCKING-BIRD. 

DIED OF A CAT, MAY, 1 878. 
I. 

Trillets of humor, — shrewdest whistle-wit, — 
Contralto cadences of grave desire 
Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre 
Drift down through sandal-odored flames that split 
About the slim young widow who doth sit 

And sing above, — midnights of tone entire, — 
Tissues of moonlight shot with songs of fire ; — 
Bright drops of tune, from oceans infinite 
Of melody, sipped off the thin-edged wave 
And trickling down the beak, — discourses brave 
Of serious matter that no man may guess, — 
Good-fellow greetings, cries of light distress — 
All these but now within the house we heard ; 
O Death, wast thou too deaf to hear the bird ? 

II. 

Ah me, though never an ear for song, thou hast 
A tireless tooth for songsters : thus of late 
Thou earnest, Death, thou Cat ! and leap'st my gate^ 

And, long ere Love could follow, thou hadst passed 

Within and snatched away, how fast, how fast. 
My bird— wit, songs, and all — thy richest freight 
Since that fell time when in some wink of fate 

Thy yellow claws unsheathed and stretched, and cast 



I04 TO OUR MOCKING-BIRD. 

Sharp hold on Keats, and dragged him slow away, 
And harried him with hope and horrid play — 
Ay, him, the world's best wood-bird, wise with song — 
Till thou hadst wrought thine own last mortal wrong. 
'Twas wrong ! 'twas wrong ! I care not, wrong^s the word- 
To munch our Keats and crunch our mocking-bird. 



III. 



Nay, Bird ; my grief gainsays the Lord's best right. 
The Lord was fain, at some late festal time. 
That Keats should set all Heaven's woods in rhyme. 
And thou in bird-notes. Lo, this tearful night, 
Methinks I see thee, fresh from death's despite. 
Perched in a palm-grove, wild with pantomime, 
O'er blissful companies couched in shady thyme, 
— Methinks I hear thy silver whistlings bright 
Mix with the mighty discourse of the wise, 

Till broad Beethoven, deaf no more, and Keats, 
'Midst of much talk, uplift their smiling eyes, 
And mark the music of thy wood-conceits, 

And halfway pause on some large, courteous word; 
And call thee "Brother," O thou heavenly Bird t 

Baltimore, 1878. 



THE DOVE. 105 



THE DOVE. 

If haply thou, O Desdemona Morn, 

Shouldst call along the curving sphere, " Remain, 
Dear Night, sweet Moor ; nay, leave me not in scorn ! " 

With soft halloos of heavenly love and pain ; — 

Shouldst thou, O Spring ! a-cower in coverts dark, 
'Gainst proud supplanting Summer sing thy plea, 

And move the mighty woods through mailed bark 
Till mortal heart-break throbbed in every tree ; — 

Or (grievous ^that may he yea o'er-soon !), 

If thou, my Heart, long holden from thy Sweet, 

Shouldst knock Death's door with mellow shocks of tune, 
Sad inquiry to make — When may we meet f 

Nay, if ye three, O Morn ! O Spring ! O Heart ! 

Should chant grave unisons of grief and love; 
Ye could not mourn with more melodious art 

Than daily doth yon dim sequestered dove. 

Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, 1877. 

5* 

/ 



lOO TO . WITH A ROSE. 



TO , WITH A ROSE. 

I ASKED my heart to say 
Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay 
Upon my Lady's natal day. 

Then said my heart to me : 
Learn from the rhyme that tioiv shall come to thee 
What fits thy Love most lovingly. 

This gift that learning shows ; 
For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes, 
I send a rose unto a Rose. 

Philadelphia, 1876. 



ON HUNTINGDON'S "MIRANDA." ic; 



ON HUNTINGDON'S " MIRANDA." 

The storm hath blown thee a lover, sweet, 
And laid him kneeling at thy feet. 
But, — guerdon rich for favor rare ! 
The wind hath all thy holy hair 
To kiss and to sing through and to flare 
Like torch-flames in the passionate air, 
About thee, O Miranda. 

Eyes in a blaze, eyes in a daze, 
Bold with love, cold with amaze. 
Chaste-thrilling eyes, fast-filling eyes 
With daintiest tears of love's surprise, 
Ye draw my soul unto your blue 
As warm skies draw the exhaling dew, 
Divine eyes of Miranda. 

And if I were yon stolid stone. 
Thy tender arm doth lean upon. 
Thy touch would turn me to a heart, 
And I would palpitate and start, 
— Content, when thou wert gone, to be 
A dumb rock by the lonesome sea 
Forever, O Miranda. 

Baltimore, 1874. 



I08 ODE TO THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 



ODE TO THE JOHNS HOPKINS 
UNIVERSITY. 

READ ON THE FOURTH COMMEMORATION DAY, 
FEBRUARY, 1880. 

How tall among her sisters, and how fair, — 
How grave beyond her youth, yet debonair 
As dawn, 'mid wrinkled Matres of old lands 
Our youngest Alma Mater modest stands ! 
In four brief cycles round the punctual sun 
Has she, old Learning's latest daughter, won 
This grace, this stature, and this fruitful fame. 

Howbeit she was born 

Unnoised as any stealing summer morn.. 
From far the sages saw, from far they came 
And ministered to her, 
Led by the soaring-genius'd Sylvester 
That, earlier, loosed the knot great Newton tied, 
And flung the door of Fame's locked temple wide. 
As favorable fairies thronged of old and blessed 
The cradled princess with their several best. 
So, gifts and dowers meet 
To lay at Wisdom's feet, 
These liberal masters largely brought — 
Dear diamonds of their long-compressM thought. 
Rich stones from out the labyrinthine cave 
Of research, pearls from Time's profoundest wave 



ODE TO THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. IO9 

And many a jewel brave, of brilliant ray, 

Dug in the far obscure Cathay 
Of meditation deep — 
With flowers, of such as keep 
Their fragrant tissues and their heavenly hues 
Fresh-bathed forever in eternal dews — 

The violet with her low-drooped eye, 

For learned modesty, — 
The student snow-drop, that doth hang and pore 
Upon the earth, like Science, evermore, 
And underneath the clod doth grope and grope, — 

The astronomer heliotrope, 
That watches heaven with a constant eye, — 
The daring crocus, unafraid to try 
(When Nature calls) the February snows, — 

And patience' perfect rose. 
Thus sped with helps of love and toil and thought, 
Thus forwarded of faith, with hope thus fraught, 
In four brief cycles round the stringent sun 
This youngest sister hath her stature won. 

Nay, why regard 
The passing of the years ? Nor made, nor marr'd, 
By help or hindrance of slow Time was she : 
O'er this fair growth Time had no mastery : 
So quick she bloomed, she seemed to bloom at birth. 
As Eve from Adam, or as he from earth. 
Superb o'er slow increase of day on day, 
Complete as Pallas she began her way ; 
Yet not from Jove's unwrinkled forehead sprung, 
But long-time dreamed, and out of trouble wrung, 
Fore-seen, wise-plann'd, pure child of thought and pain, 
Leapt our Minerva from a mortal brain. 

And here, O finer Pallas, long remain, — 
Sit on these Maryland hills, and fix thy reign, 



no ODE TO THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 

And frame a fairer Athens than of yore 

In these blest bounds of Baltimore, — 

Here, where the climates meet 
That each may make the other's lack complete, — 
Where Florida's soft Favonian airs beguile 
The nipping North, — where nature's powers smile, — 
Where Chesapeake holds frankly forth her hands 
Spread wide with invitation to all lands, — 
Where now the eager people yearn to find 
The organizing hand that fast may bind 
Loose straws of aimless aspiration fain 

In sheaves of serviceable grain, — 

Here, old and new in one, 
Through nobler cycles round a richer sun 

O'er-rule our modern ways, 
O blest Minerva of these larger days ! 
Call here thy congress of the great, the wise, 
The hearing ears, the seeing eyes, — 
Enrich us out of every farthest clime, — 
Yea, make all ages native to our time. 

Till thou the freedom of the city grant 

To each most antique habitant 
Of Fame, — 
Bring Shakspere back, a man and not a name, — 
Let every player that shall mimic us 
In audience see old godlike ^Eschylus, — 
Bring Homer, Dante, Plato, Socrates, — 
Bring Virgil from the visionary seas 
Of old romance, — bring Milton, no more blind, — 
Bring large Lucretius, with unmaniac mind,-^ 
Bring all gold hearts and high resolved wills 
To be with us about these happy hills, — 

Bring old Renown 
To walk familiar citizen of the town,— 



ODE TO THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. Ill 

Bring Tolerance, that can kiss and disagree, — 
Bring Virtue, Honor, Truth, and Loyalty, — 
Bring Faith that sees with undissembling eyes, — 
Bring all large Loves and heavenly Charities, — 
Till man seem less a riddle vnto man 
And fair Utopia less Utopian, 
And many peoples call from shor° to shore, 
The world has bloomed again, at Baltimore ! 

Baltimore, 1880. 



112 TO DR. THOMAS SHEARER. 



TO DR. THOMAS SHEARER. 

PRESENTING A PORTRAIT- BUST OF THE AUTHOR. 

Since you, rare friend ! have tied my living tongue 
With thanks more large than man e'er said or sung, 

So let the dumbness of this image be 
My eloquence, and still interpret me. 

Baltimore, 1880. 



MARTHA WASHINGTON. 11.^ 



MARTHA WASHINGTON. 

WRITTEN FOR THE "MARTHA WASHINGTON COURT 
JOURNAL." 

Down cold snow-stretches of our bitter time, 

When windy shams and the rain-mocking sleet 
Of Trade have cased us in such icy rime 

That hearts are scarcely hot enough to beat, 
Thy fame, O Lady of the lofty eyes. 

Doth fall along the age, like as a lane 
Of Spring, in whose most generous boundaries 

Full many a frozen virtue warms again. 
To-day I saw the pale much-burdened form 

Of Charity come limping o'er the line, 
And straighten from the bending of the storm 

And flush with stirrings of new strength divine, 
Such influence and sweet gracious impulse came 
Out of the beams of thine immortal name I 

Baltimore, February 22d, 1875. 



I I -4- PSALM OF THE WEST. 



PSALM OF THE WEST. 

Land of the willful gospel, thou worst and thou best ; 
Tall Adam of lands, new-made of the dust of the West ; 
Thou wroughtest alone in the Garden of God, unblest 
Till He fashioned lithe Freedom to lie for thine Eve on thy 
breast — 
Till out of thy heart's dear neighborhood, out of thy side, 
He fashioned an intimate Sweet one and brought thee a 

Bride. 
Cry hail ! nor bewail that the wound of her coming was 
wide. 
Lo, Freedom reached forth where the world as an apple 

hung red ; 
Let us taste the whole radiatit round of it, gayly she said : 
If we die, at the worst we shall lie as the first of the dead. 
Knowledge of Good and of 111, O Land ! she hath given 

thee ; 
Perilous godhoods of choosing have rent thee and riven 

thee ; 
Will's high adoring to Ill's low exploring hath driven thee — 
Freedom, thy Wife, hath uplifted thy life and clean 
shriven thee ! 
Her shalt thou clasp for a balm to the scars of thy breast. 
Her shalt thou kiss for a calm to thy wars of unrest, 
Her shalt extol in the psalm of the soul of the West. 

For Weakness, in freedom, grows stronger than Strength 

with a chain ; 
And Error, in freedom, will come to lamenting his stain, 
Till freely repenting he whiten his spirit again ; 



PSAl,M OF IIIK WF.ST. TT? 

And Friendship, in freedom, will blot out the bounding of 

race ; 
And straight Law, in freedom, will curve to the rounding of 

grace ; 
And Fashion, in freedom, will die of the lie in her face ; 
And Desire flame white on the sense as a fire on a height, 
And Sex flame white in the soul as a star in the night. 
And Marriage plight sense unto soul as the two-colored 

light 
Of the fire and the star shines one with a duplicate might; 
And Science be known as the sense making love to the All, 
And Art be known as the soul making love to the All, 
And Love be known as the marriage of man with the All — 
Till Science to knowing the Highest shall lovingly turn, 
Till Art to loving the Highest shall consciously burn, 
Till Science to Art as a man to a woman shall yearn, 
— Then morn ! 
When Faith from the wedding of Knowing and Loving shall 

purely be born, 
And the Child shall smile in the West, and the West to the 

East give morn, 
And the Time in that ultimate Prime shall forget old regret- 
ting and scorn. 
Yea, the stream of the light shall give ofT in a shimmer the 
dream of the night forlorn. 

Once on a time a soul 
Too full of his dole 
In a querulous dream went crying from pole to pole — 
Went sobbing and crying 
For ever a sorrowful song of living and dying. 
How life was the dropping and death the drying 
Of a Tear that fell in a day when God was sighing. 
And ever Time tossed him bitterly to and fro 
As a shuttle inlaying a perilous warp of woe 



Il6 PSALM OF THE WEST. 

In the woof of things from terminal snow to snow. 
Till, lo ! 
Rest. 
And he sank on the grass of the earth as a lark on its nest, 
And he lay in the midst of the way from the east to the west 
Then the East came out from the east and the West from 
the west, 
And, behold ! in the gravid deeps of the lower dark. 
While, above, the wind was fanning the dawn as a spark, 
The East and the West took form as the wings of a lark. 
One wing was feathered with facts of the uttermost Past, 
And one with the dreams of a prophet ; and both sailed 

fast 
And met where the sorrowful Soul on the earth was cast. 
Then a Voice said : Thine, if thojc lovest enough to use ; 
But another : To fly and to sing is paitt : refuse! 
Then the Soul said : Come, O my wifigs / I cantiot but 
choose. 
And the Soul was a-tremble like as a new-born thing, 
Till the spark of the dawn wrought a conscience in heart as 

in wing. 
Saying, Thou art the lark of the dawn ; it is time to sing. 

Then that artist began in a lark's low circling to pass ; 
And first he sang at the height of the top of the grass 
A song of the herds that are born and die in the mass. 
And next he sang a celestial-passionate round 
At the height of the lips of a woman above the ground. 
How Love was a fair true Lady, and Death a wild hound. 
And she called, and he licked her hand and with girdle 
was boioid. 
And then with a universe-love he was hot in the wings. 
And the sun stretched beams to the worlds as the shining 

strings 
Of the large hid harp that sounds when an all-lover sings ; 



PSALM OF THE WEST. II7 

And the sky's blue traction prevailed o'er the earth's in 

might, 
And the passion of flight grew mad with the glory of 

height 
And the uttering of song was like to the giving of light ; 
.\nd he learned that hearing and seeing wrought nothing 

alone, 
And that music on earth much light upon Heaven had 

thrown. 
And he melted-in silvery sunshine with silvery tone ; 
And the spirals of music e'er higher and higher he wound 
Till the luminous cinctures of melody up from the ground 
Arose as the shaft of a tapering tower of sound — 
Arose for an unstricken full-finished Babel of sound. 
But God was not angry, nor ever confused his tongue, 
For not out of selfish nor impudent travail was wrung 
The song of all men and all things that the all-lover sung. 
Then he paused at the top of his tower of song on high, 
And the voice of the God of the artist from far in the 
sky 
Said, Son, look down : I will cause that a Time gone by 
Shall pass, and reveal his heart to thy loving eye. 

Far spread, below, 

The sea that fast hath locked in his loose flow 

All secrets of Atlantis' drowned woe 

Lay bound about with night on every hand, 
Save down the eastern brink a shining band 
Of day made out a little way from land. 

Then from that shore the wind upbore a cry : 

Thou Sea, thoit Sea of Darkness ! why, oh why 

Post waste thy West in nnthrift mystery ? 
But ever the idiot sea-mouths foam and fill, 
And never a wave doth good for man or ill, 
And Blank is king, and Nothing hath his will ; 



Il8 PSALM OF THE WEST. 

And like as grim-beaked pelicans level file 
Across the sunset toward their nightly isle 
On solemn wings that wave but seldomwhile, 
So leanly sails the day behind the day 
To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray, 
And down its mortal fissures sinks away. 

Master, Master, break this ban : 

The wave lacks Thee. 
Oh, is it not to widen man 

Stretches the sea ? 
Oh, must the sea-bird's idle van 

Alone be free ? 

Into the Sea of the Dark doth creep 

Bjorne's pallid sail, 
As the face of a walker in his sleep, 

Set rigid and most pale, 
About the night doth peer and peep 

In a dream of an ancient tale. 

Lo, here is made a hasty cry : 

Latid, land, upon the west ! — • 
God save such land / Go by, go by : 

Here viay 710 mortal rest. 
Where this waste hell of slate doth lie 

And grind the glacier' s breast. 

The sail goeth limp : hey, flap and strain I 
Round eastward slanteth the mast; 

As the sleep-walker waked with pain, 
White-clothed in the midnight blast, 

Doth stare and quake, and stride again 
To houseward all aghast. 



PSALM OF THE WEST. II9 

Yet as, A ghost ! his household cry : 

He hath followed a ghost inflight. 
Let us see the ghost — his household fly 

With lamps to search the night — ■ 
So Norsemen's sails run out and try 

The Sea of the Dark with light. 

Stout Are Marson, southward whirled 

From out the tempest's hand, 
Doth skip the sloping of the world 

To Huitramannaland, 
Where Georgia's oaks with moss-beards curled 

Wave by the shining strand, 

And sway in sighs from Florida's Spring 

Or Carolina's Palm — 
What time the mocking-bird doth bring 

The woods his artist's-balm, 
Singing the Song of Everything 

Consummate-sweet and calm — 

Land of large merciful-hearted skies, 

Big bounties, rich increase, 
Green rests for Trade's blood-shotten eyes, 

For o'er-beat brains surcease, 
For Love the dear woods' sympathies, 

For Grief the wise woods' peace, 

For Need rich givings of hid powers 

In hills and vales quick-won, 
For Greed large exemplary flowers 

That ne'er have toiled nor spun, 
For Heat fair-tempered winds and showers. 

For Cold the neighbor sun. 



I20 PSALM OF THE WEST. 

Land where the Spirits of June-Heat 

From out their forest-maze 
Stray forth at eve with loitering feet. 

And fervent hymns upraise 
In bland accord and passion sweet 

Along the Southern ways : — 

** O Darkness, tawny Twin whose Twin hath ceased, 

Thou Odor from the day-flower's crushing born, 
Thou visible Sigh out of the mournful East, ^ 

That cannot see her lord again till morn : •' 

O Leaves, with hollow palms uplifted high 

To catch the stars' most sacred rain of light : J 

O pallid Lily-petals fain to die : 

Soul-stung by subtle passion of the night : 
O short-breath'd Winds beneath the gracious moon 

Running mild errands for mild violets, 
Or carrying sighs from the red lips of June 

What wavering way the odor-current sets : 
O Stars wreathed vinewise round yon heavenly dells, 

Or thrust from out the sky in curving sprays. 
Or whorled, or looped with pendent flower-bells. 

Or bramble-tangled in a brilliant maze, 
Or lying like young lilies in a lake 

About the great white Lily of the moon, 
Or drifting white from where in heaven shake 

Star-portraitures of apple trees in June, 
Or lapp'd as leaves of a great rose of stars. 

Or shyly clambering up cloud-lattices, 
Or trampled pale in the red path of Mars, 

Or trim-set quaint in gardeners'-fantasies : 
O long June Night-sounds crooned among the leaves; 

O whispered confidence of Dark and Green ; 
O murmurs in old moss about old eaves ; 

O tinklings floating over water-sheen." 



rSALM OF THE WEST. 121 

Then Leif, bold son of Eric the Red, 

To the South of the West doth flee- 
Past slaty Helluland is sped, 

Past Markland 's woody lea, 
Till round about fair Vinland's head, 
Where Taunton helps the sea. 

The Norseman calls, the anchor falls. 

The mariners hurry a-strand : 
They wassail with fore-drunken skals 

Where prophet wild grapes stand ; 
They lift the Leifsbooth's hasty walls 

They stride about the land — 

New England, thee ! whose ne'er-spent wine 

As blood doth stretch each vein. 
And urge thee, sinewed like thy vine, 

Through peril and all pain 
To grasp Endeavor's towering Pine, 

And, once ahold, remain — 

Land where the strenuous-handed Wind 

With sarcasm of a friend 
Doth smite the man would lag behind 

To frontward of his end ; 
Yea, where the taunting fall and grind 

Of Nature's 111 doth send 

Such mortal challenge of a clown 

Rude-thrust upon the soul. 
That men but smile where mountains frown 

Or scowling waters roll, 
And Nature's front of battle down 

Do hurl from pole to pole. 
6 



122 PSALM OF THE WEST. 

Now long the Sea of Darkness glimmers low 
With sails from Northland flickering to and fro — ■ 
Thorwald, Karlsefne, and those twin heirs of woe, 

Hellboge and Finnge, in treasonable bed 

Slain by the ill-born child of Eric Red, 

Freydisa false. Till, as much time is fled, 
Once more the vacant airs with darkness fill, 
Once more the wave doth never good nor ill, 
And Blank is king, and Nothing works his will ; 

And leanly sails the day behind the day 

To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray, 

And down its mortal fissures sinks away, 
As when the grim-beaked pelicans level file 
Across the sunset to their seaward isle 
On solemn wings that wave but seldomwhile. 

Master, Master, poets sing; 

The Time calls Thee ; 
1 Yon Sea binds hard on everything 

Man longs to be : 
Oh, shall the sea-bird's aimless wing 

Alone move free ? 

Santa Maria, well thou tremblest down the wave, 
Thy Pinta far abow, thy Niiia nigh astern : 

Columbus stands in the night alone, and, passing grave, 
Yearns o'er the sea as tones o'er under-silence yearn. 

Heartens his heart as friend befriends his friend less brave, 
Makes burn the faiths that cool, and cools the doubts that 
burn : — 

I. 

" 'Twixt this and dawn, three hours my soul will smite 
With prickly seconds, or less tolerably 
With dull-blade minutes flatwise slapping me. 



PSALM OF THE WEST. 123 

Wait, Heart ! Time moves. — Thou lithe young Western 

Night, 
Just-crowned king, slow riding to thy right, 
Would God thai I might straddle mutiny 
Calm as thou sitt'st yon never-managed sea, 
Balk'st with his balking, fliest with his flight, 
Giv'st supple to his rearings and his falls, 
Nor dropp'st one coronal star about thy brow 
Whilst ever dayward thou art steadfast drawn ! 
Yea, would I rode these mad contentious brawls 
No damage taking from their If and How, 
Nor no result save galloping to my Dawn ! 

H. 

" My Dawn ? my Dawn ? How if it never break? 
How if this West by other Wests is pieced. 
And these by vacant Wests on Wests increased — 

One Pain of Space, with hollow ache on ache 

Throbbing and ceasing not for Christ's own sake ? — 

Big perilous theorem, hard for king and priest : 

Pursue the West but long enough, Uis East I 

Oh, if this watery world no turning take ! 
Oh, if for all my logic, all my dreams, 
Provings of that which is by that which seems. 

Fears, hopes, chills, heats, hastes, patiences, droughts, 
tears, 

Wife-grievings, slights on love, embezz'ed years. 
Hates, treaties, scorns, upliftings, loss and gain, — 
This earth, no sphere, be all one sickening plane I 

HI. 

" Or, haply, how if this contrarious West, 

That me by turns hath starved, by turns hath fed, 
Embraced, disgraced, beat back, solicited, 
Have no fixed heart of Law within his breast. 



124 PSALM OF THE WEST, 

Or with some different rhythm doth e'er contest 

Nature in the East ? Why, 'tis but three weeks fle«. 
I saw my Judas needle shake his head 

And flout the Pole that, east, he Lord confessed ! 
God ! if this West should own some other Pole, 
And with his tangled ways perplex my soul 

Until the maze grow mortal, and I die 

Where distraught Nature clean hath gone astray, 
On earth some other wit than Time's at play, 

Some other God than mine above the sky 1 



IV. 

" Now speaks mine other heart with cheerier seeming 
Ho, Admiral ! o'er- defalking to thy crew 
Against thyself, thyself far overfew 

To front yon multitudes of rebel scheming ? 

Come, ye wild twenty years of heavenly dreaming ! 
Come, ye wild weeks since first this canvas drew 
Out of vexed Palos ere the dawn was blue. 

O'er milky waves about the bows full-creaming ! 

Come set me round with many faithful spears 
Of confident remembrance — how I crushed 
Cat-lived rebellions, pitfalled treasons, hushed 

Scared husbands' heart-break cries on distant wives, 

Made cowards blush at whining for their lives. 

Watered my parching souls, and dried their tears. 



V. 



" Ere we Gomera cleared, a coward cried, 

Turn, turn : here be three caravels ahead. 
From Portugal, to take us : we are dead ! 
Hold Westward, pilot, calmly I replied. 



PSALM OF THE WEST. 12$ 

So when the last land down the horizon died, 

Go back, go back ! they prayed : our hearts are lead.^ 
Friends, we are bound into the West, I said. 

Then passed the wreck of a mast upon our side. 

See (so they wept) God's Warning/ Admiral, turn! — 
Steersman, I said, hold straight into the West. 

Then down the night we saw the meteor burn. 
So do the very heavens in fire protest : 

Good Admiral, put about ! O Spain, dear Spain ! — 

Hold straight into the West, I said again. 

VI. 

' ' Next drive we o'er the slimy-weeded sea. 

Lo / herebeneath (another coward cries) 

The cursed land of sunk Atlantis lies : 
This slime will suck us down — turn while thou 'rt free !~ 
But no ! I said, Freedom bears West for me / 

Yet when the long-time stagnant winds arise, 

And day by day the keel to westward flies, 
My Good my people's 111 doth come to be : 

Ever the winds into the West do blow ; 

Never a ship, once turned, might homeward go ; 
Meanwhile we speed into the lonesome main. 

For Christ's sake, parley. Admiral/ Turn, before 
We sail outside all bounds of helpfrotn pain / — 

Our help is in the West, I said once more. 

VII. 

•• So when there came a mighty cry of Land ! 

And we clomb up and saw, and shouted strong 

Salve Regina / all the ropes along, 
But knew at morn how that a counterfeit band 
Of level clouds had aped a silver strand ; 



126 PSALM OF THE WEST. 

So when we heard the orchard-bird's small song, 

And all the people cried, A hellish throng 
To tempt us onward by the Devil planned, 
Yea, all from hell — keen heroti, fresh green weedi, 
Pelican, tunny fish, fair tapering reeds, 

^Lie-telling lands that ever shine and die 

In clouds of nothing round the empty sky. 
Tired Admiral, get thee frotn this hell, and rest I — • 
Steersman, I said, hold straight into the West. 

VIII. 

'* I marvel how mine eye, ranging the Night, 

From its big circling ever absently 

Returns, thou large low Star, to fix on thee. 
Maria ! Star ? No star : a Light, a Light ! 
Wouldst leap ashore, Heart ? Yonder burns— a Light. 

Pedro Gutierrez, wake ! come up to me. 

I prithee stand and gaze about the sea : • 

What seest ? Admiral, like as land — a Light / ' 

Well ! Sanchez of Segovia, come and try : 
What seest ? Admiral, naught but sea and sky ! 

Well! But /saw It. Wait ! the Pinta's gun ! 

Why, look, 'tis dawn, the land is clear : 'tis done ! 
Two dawns do break at once from Time's full hand — 
God's, East — mine. West : good friends, behold my 
Land ! " 

Master, Master ! faster fly 
Now the hurrying seasons by ; 
Now the Sea of Darkness wide 
Rolls in light from side to side ; 
Mark, slow drifting to the West 
Down the trough and up the crest, 
Yonder piteous heartsease petal 
Many-motioned rise and settle — ■ 



PSALM OF THE WEST 12; 

Petal cast a-sea from land 
By the awkward-fingered Hand 
That, mistaking Nature's course, 
Tears the love it Tain wDiild force — 
Petal calm of heartsease flower 
Smiling sweet on tempest sour, 
Smiling where by crest and trough 
Heartache Winds at heartsease scoff, 
Breathing mild perfumes of prayer 
'Tvvixt the scolding sea and air. 

Mayflower, piteous Heartsease Petal! 
Suavely down the sea-troughs settle, 
Gravely breathe perfumes of prayer 
'Twixt the scolding sea and air, 
Bravel) up the sea-hills rise — 
Sea-hills slant thee toward the skies. 
Master, hold disaster off 
From the crest and from the trough ; 
Heartsease, on the heartache sea 
God, thy God, will pilot thee. 

Mayflower, Ship of Faith's best Hope \ 
Thou art sure if all men grope ; 
Mayflower, Ship of Hope's best Faith f 
All is true the great God saith ; 
Mayflower, Ship of Charity ! 
Love is Lord of land and sea. 
Oh, with love and love's best care 
Thy large godly freightage bear — 
Godly Hearts that. Grails of gold, 
Still the blood of Faith do hold. 

Now bold Massachusetts clear 
Cuts the rounding of the sphere. 



128 PSALM OF THE WESt. 

Out the anchor, sail no more, 
Lay us by the Future's shore — 
Not the shore we sought, ^tis true^ 
But the time is come to do. 
Leap, dear Standish, leap and wade i 
Bradford, Hopkins, Tilley, wade : 
Leap and wade ashore and kneel — 
Cod be praised that steered the keel / 
Home is good and soft is rest, 
Even in this jagged West : 
Freedofu lives, and Right shall stand / 
Blood of Faith is in the land. 

Then in what time the primal icy years 
Scraped slowly o'er the Puritans' hopes and fears. 
Like as great glaciers built of frozen tears, 
The Voice from far within the secret sky 
Said, Blood of Faith ye have ? So j let tis try. 

And presently 
The anxious-masted ships that westward fare, 
Cargo'd with trouble and a-list with care, 
Their outraged decks hot back to England bear. 
Then come again with stowage of worse weight, 
Battle, and tyrannous Tax, and Wrong, and Hate, 
And all bad items of Death's perilous freight. 

O'er Cambridge set the yeomen's mark ; 
Climb, patriot, through the April dark. 
O lanthorn ! kindle fast thy light. 
Thou budding star in the April night, 
For never a star more news hath told, 
Or later flame in heaven shall hold. 
Ay, lanthorn on the North Church tower, 
When that thy church hath had her hour, 



PSALM OF THE WEST. Hg 

Still from the top of Reverence high 
Shalt thou illume Fame's ampler sky ; 
For, statured large o'er town and tree. 
Time's tallest Figure stands by thee, 
And, dim as now thy wick may shine 
The Future lights his lamp at thine. 

Now haste thee while the way is clear, 

Paul Revere ! 
Haste, Dawes ! but haste thou not, O Sun! 

To Lexington. 

Then Devens looked and saw the light : 
He got him forth into the night. 
And watched alone on the river-shore, 
And marked the British ferrying o'er. 

John Parker ! rub thine eyes and yawn : 
But one o'clock and yet 'tis Dawn ! 
Quick, rub thine eyes and draw thy hose ' 
The Morning comes ere darkness goes. 
Have forth and call the yeomen out, 
For somewhere, somewhere close about 
Full soon a Thing must come to be 
Thine honest eyes shall stare to see — 
Full soon before thy patriot eyes 
Freedom from out of a Wound shall rise 

Then haste ye, Prescott and Revere t 
Bring all the men of Lincoln here ; 
Let Chelmsford, Littleton, Carlisle, 
Let Acton, Bedford, hither file — 
Oh hither file, and plainly see 
Out of a wound leap Liberty. 
6* 



130 PSALM OF THE WEST. 

Say, Woodman April ! all in green, 
Say, Robin April ! hast thou seen 
In all thy travel round the earth 
Ever a morn of calmer birth ? 
But Morning's eye alone serene 
Can gaze across yon village-green 
To where the trooping British run 
Through Lexington. 

Good men in fustian, stand ye still ; 

The men in red come o'er the hill. 

Lay down yotir arms, damned Rebels / cry 

The men in red full haughtily. 

But never a grounding gun is heard ; 

The men in fustian stand unstirred ; 

Dead calm, save maybe a wise bluebird 

Puts in his little heavenly word. 

O men in red ! if ye but knew 

The half as much as bluebii'ds do, 

Now in this little tender calm 

Each hand would out, and every palm 

With patriot palm strike brotherhood's stroke 

Or ere these lines of battle broke. 



O men in red ! if ye but knew 

The least of the all that bluebirds do, 

Now in this little godly calm 

Yon voice might sing the Future's Psalm — 

The Psalm of Love with the brotherly eyes 

Who pardons and is very wise — 

Yon voice that shouts, high-hoarse with ire, 

Fire ! 
The red-coats fire, the homespuns fall : 
The homespuns' anxious voices call, 



PSALM OF THE WEST. 131 

Brother, art hurt ? and Where hit, John? 

And, Wipe this blood, and Men, come on, 

And, Neighbor, do but lift my head. 

And Who is ivoiiytded ? Who is dead ? 

Seven are killed. My God ! my God / 

Seven lie dead on the village sod. 

Two Harringtons, Parker, Hadley, Brown^ 

Monroe and Porter, — these are down. 

Nay, look f Stout Harrington not yet dead I 

He crooks his elbow, lifts his head. 

He lies at the step of his own house-door ; 

He crawls and makes a path of gore. 

The wife from the window hath seen, and rushed ; 

He hath reached the step, but the blood hath gushed ; 

He hath crawled to the step of his own house-door, 

But his head hath dropped : he will crawl no more. 

Clasp, Wife, and kiss, and lift the head : 

Harrington lies at his doorstep dead. 

But, O ye Six that round him lay 

And bloodied up that April day ! 

As Harrington fell, ye likewise fell — 

At the door of the House wherein ye dwell ; 

As Harrington came, ye likewise came 

And died at the door of your House of Fame. 



Go by, old Field of Freedom's hopes and fears; 
Go by, old Field of Brothers' hate and tears : 
Behold ! yon home of Brothers' Love appears 
Set in the burnished silver of July, 
On Schuylkill wrought as in old broidery 
Clasped hands upon a shining baldric lie, 
New Hampshire, Georgia, and the mighty ten 
That lie between, have heard the huge-nibbed pen 
Of Jefferson tell the rights of man to men. 



132 PSALM OF THE WEST. 

They sit in the reverend Hall : Shall we declare ? 
Floats round about the anxious-quivering air 
'Twixt narrow Schuylkill and broad Delaware. 
Already, Land ! thou hast declared : 'tis done. 
Ran ever clearer speech than that did run 
When the sweet Seven died at Lexington ? 

Canst legibler write than Concord's large-stroked Act 
Or when at Bunker Hill the clubbed guns cracked? 
Hast ink more true than blood, or pen than fact ? 
Nay, as the poet mad with heavenly fires 
Flings men his song white-hot, then back retires, 
Cools heart, broods o'er the song again, inquires, 
Why did I this, why that? and slowly draws 
From Art's unconscious act Art's conscious laws ; 
So, Freedom, writ, declares her writing's cause. 
All question vain, all chill foreboding vain. 
Adams, ablaze with faith, is hot and fain ; 
And he, straight- fibred Soul of mighty grain, 
Deep-rooted Washington, afire, serene — 
Tall Bush that burns, yet keeps its substance green- 
Sends daily word, of import calm yet keen. 
Warm from the front of battle, till the fire 
Wraps opposition in and flames yet higher. 
And Doubt's thin tissues flash where Hope's aspire ; 
And, Ay, declare, and ever strenuous Ay 
Falls from the Twelve, and Time and Nature cry 
Consent with kindred burnings of July ; 
And delegate Dead from each past age and race. 
Viewless to man, in large procession pace 
Downward athwart each set and steadfast face, 
Responding Ay in many tongues ; and lo ! 
Manhood and Faith and Self and Love and Wot 
And Art and Brotherhood and Learning go 
Rearward the files of dead, and softly say 
Their saintly Ay, and softly pass away 
By airy exits of that ample day. 



PSALM OF THE WEST. 133 

Now fall the chill reactionary snows 
Of man's defect, and every wind that blows 
Keeps back the Spring of Freedom's perfect Rose. 
Now naked feet with crimson fleck the ways, 
And Heaven is stained with flags that mutinies raise. 
And Arnold-spotted move the creeping days. 
Long do the eyes that look from Heaven see 
Time smoke, as in the spring the mulberry tree, 
With buds of battles opening fitfully. 
Till Yorktown's winking vapors slowly fade, 
And Time's full top casts down a pleasant shade 
Where Freedom lies unarmed and unafraid. 



Master, ever faster fly 
Now the vivid seasons by ; 
Now the glittering Western land 
Twins the day-lit Eastern Strand ; 
Now white Freedom's sea-bird wing 
Roams the Sea of Everything ; 
Now the freemen to and fro 
Bind the tyrant sand and snow. 
Snatching Death's hot bolt ere hurled, 
Flash new Life about the world, 
Sun the secrets of the hills, 
Shame the gods' slow-grinding mills, 
Prison Yesterday in Print, 
Read To-morrow's weather-hint, 
Haste before the halting Time, 
Try new virtue and new crime. 
Mould new faiths, devise new creeds, 
Run each road that frontward leads. 
Driven by an Onward-ache, 
Scorning souls that circles make. 



134 PSALM OF THE WEST. 

Now, O Sin ! O Love's lost Shame I 
Burns the land with redder flame : 
North in line and South in line 
Yell the charge and spring the mine. 
Heartstrong South would have his way^ 
Headstrong North hath said him nay : 
O strong Heart, strong Brain, beware I 
Hear a Song from out the air : 

I. 

** Lists all white and blue in the skies ; 
And the people hurried amain 
To the Tournament under the ladies' eyes 
Where jousted Heart and Brain. 

II. 

" Blow, herald, blow / There entered Heart, 
A youth in crimson and gold. 
Blow, herald, blow ! Brain stood apart, 
Steel-armored, glittering, cold. 

HL 

" Heart's palfrey caracoled gayly round, 
Heart tra-li-raed merrily ; 
But Brain sat still, with never a sound- 
Full cynical-calm was he. 

IV. 

*' Heart's helmet-crest bore favors three 
From his lady's white hand caught ; 
Brain's casque was bare as Fact— not he 
Or favor gave or sought. 



PSALM OF THE WEST. 135 



V. 



" BloWy herald, blow f Heart shot a glance 
To catch his lady's eye ; 
But Brain looked straight a-front, his lance 
To aim more faithfully. 

VI. 

" They charged, they struck ; both fell, both bled; 
Brain rose again, ungloved ; 
Heart fainting smiled, and softly said, 
My love to my Beloved." 

Heart and Brain ! no more be twain ', 
Throb and think, one flesh again ! 
Lo ! they weep, they turn, they run ; 
Lo ! they kiss : Love, thou art one I 



Now the Land, with drying tears, 
Counts him up his flocks of years, 
" See," he says, " my substance grows; 
Hundred-flocked my Herdsman goes, 
Hundred-flocked my Herdsman stands 
On the Past's broad meadow-lands, 
Come from where ye mildly graze. 
Black herds, white herds, nights and days. 
Drive them homeward. Herdsman Time, 
From the meadows of the Prime : 
I will feast my house, and rest. 
Neighbor East, come over West ; 
Pledge me in good wine and words 
While I count my hundred herds. 



130 PSALM OF THE WEST. 

Sum the substance of my Past 
From the first unto the last, 
Chanting o'er the generous brim 
Cloudy memories yet more dim, 
Ghostly rhymes of Norsemen pale 
Staring by old Bjorne's sail, 
Strains more noble of that night 
Worn Columbus saw his Light, 
Psalms of still more heavenly tone, 
How the Mayflower tossed alone, 
Olden tale and later song 
Of the Patriot's love and wrong, 
Grandsire's ballad, nurse's hymn-^ 
Chanting o'er the sparkling brim 
Till I shall from first to last 
Sum the substance of my Past." 



Then called the Artist's God from in the sky : 
" This Time shall show by dream and mystery ! 

The heart of all his matter to thine eye. 
Son, study stars by looking down in streams, 
Interpret that which is by that which seems. 
And tell thy dreams in words which are but dreams. 



The Master with His lucent hand 
Pinched up the atom hills and plains 

O'er all the moiety of land 
The ocean-bounded West contains : 

The dust lay dead upon the calm 

And mighty middle of His palm. 






PSALM OF THE WEST. I37 



II. 

And lo ! He wrought full tenderly, 
And lo ! He wrought with love and might, 

And lo ! He wrought a thing to see 
Was marvel in His people's sight : 

He wrought His image dead and small, 

A nothing fashioned like an All. 

III. 

Then breathed He softly on the dead : 
^ Live Self! — thou part, yet none, of Me ; 

Dust for humility," He said, 
'* And my warm breath for Charity. 

Behold my latest work, thou Earth t 

The Self of Man is taking birth." 

IV. 

Then, Land, tall Adam of the West, 
Thou stood'st upon the springy sod. 

Thy large eye ranging self-possest, 
Thy limbs the limbs of God's young god, 

Thy Passion murmuring I will — 

Lord of the Lordship Good-and-IU. 

V. 

O manful arms, of supple size 
To clasp a world or a waist as well ! 

O manful eyes, to front the skies 
Or look much pity down on hell ! 

O manful tongue, to work and sing, 

And soothe a child and dare a king ! 



?8 PSALM OF THE WEST. 



VI. 

O wonder ! Now thou sleep' st in pain, 
Like as some dream thy soul did grieve : 

God wounds thee, heals thee whole again. 
And calls thee trembling to thine Eve. 

Wide-armed, thou dropp'st on knightly knee : 

Dear Love, Dear Freedom, go with me ! 

VII. 

Then all the beasts before thee passed — 
Beast War, Oppression, Murder, Lust, 

False Art, False Faith, slow skulking last — 
And out of Time's thick-rising dust 

Thy Lord said, " Name them, tame them, Son| 

Nor rest, nor rest, till thou hast done." 

VIIL 

Ah. name thou false, or tame thou wrong. 
At heart let no man fear for thee : 

Thv Past sings ever Freedom's Song, 
Thy Future's voice sounds wondrous free ; 

And Freedom is more large than Crime, 

And Error is more small than Time. 

IX. 

Come, thou whole Self of Latter Man I 
Come o'er thy realm of Good-and-111, 

And do, thou Self that say'st I can, 
And love, thou Self that say'st I will ; 

And prove and know Time's worst and best^ 

Thou tall young Adam of the West I 
Baltimore, 1876. 



AT FIRST. I.IQ 



AT FIRST, 

TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 

My crippled sense fares bow'd along 

His uncompanioned way, 
And wronged by death pays life with wrong 
And I wake by night and dream by day. 

And the Morning seems but fatigued Night 

That hath wept his visage pale, 
And the healthy mark 'twixt dark and light 
In sickly sameness out doth fail. 

And the woods stare strange, and the wind is dumbk 

— O Wind, pray talk again — 
And the Hand of the Frost spreads stark and numo 
As Death's on the deadened window-pane. 

Still dumb, thou Wind, old voluble friend? 

And the middle of the day is cold. 
And the heart of eve beats lax i' the end 
As a legend's climax poorly told. 

Oh vain the up straining of the hands 

In the chamber late at night. 
Oh vain the complainings, the hot demands, 
The prayers for a sound, the tears for a sight. 



T40 AT f^IRST. 

No word from over the starry line, 

No motion felt in the dark, 
And never a day gives ever a sign 
Or a dream sets seal with palpable mark. 

And O my God, how slight it were, 
How nothing, thou All ! to thee. 
That a kiss or a whisper might fall from her 
Down by the way of Time to me : 

Or some least grace of the body of love, 

— Mere wafture of floating-by, 
Mere sense of unseen smiling above, 

Mere hint sincere of a large blue eye, \ 

I 
Mere dim receipt of sad delight 

From Nearness warm in the air, 
What time with the passing of the night 
She also passed, somehow, somewhere. 

Baltimore, 1876. 



I 



A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER. 141 



A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE 
MASTER. 

Into the woods my Master went, 

Clean forspent, forspent. 

Into the woods my Master came, 

Forspent with love and shame. 

But the olives they were not blind to Him, 

The little gray leaves were kind to Him : 

The thorn-tree had a mind to Him 

When into the woods He came. 

Out of the woods my Master went. 

And He was well content. 

Out of the woods my Master came, 

Content with death and shame. 

When Death and Shame would woo Him last, 

From under the trees they drew Him last : 

'Twas on a tree they slew Him — last 

When out of the woods He came. 

Baltimorb, November, 1880. 



142 A FLORIDA SUNDAY. 



A FLORIDA SUNDAY. 

From cold Norse caves or buccaneer Southern seas 

Oft come repenting tempests here to die ; 
BewaiHng old-time wrecks and robberies, 

They shrive to priestly pines with many a sigh, 
Breathe salutary balms through lank-lock'd hair 

Of sick men's heads, and soon — this world outworn- 
Sink into saintly heavens of stirless air. 

Clean from confessional. One died, this morn. 
And willed the world to wise Queen Tranquil : she, 

Sweet sovereign Lady of all souls that bide 
In contemplation, tames the too bright skies 

Like that faint agate film, far down descried, 
Restraining suns in sudden thoughtful eyes 

Which flashed but now. Blest distillation rare 
Of o'er-rank brightness filtered waterwise 

Through all the earths in heaven — thou always fair, 
Still virgin bride of e'er creating thought — 
Dream-worker, in whose dream the Future's wrought- 
Healer of hurts, free balm for bitter wrongs — 
Most silent mother of all sounding songs — 
Thou that dissolves! hells to make thy heaven — 
Thou tempest's heir, that keep'st no tempest leaven-' 
But after winds' and thunders' wide mischance 
Dost brood, and better thine inheritance — 
Thou privacy of space, where each grave Star 
As in his own still chamber sits afar 



A FLORIDA SUNDAY. I43 

To meditate, yet, by thy walls unpent, 
Shines to his fellows o'er the firmament— 
Oh ! as thou liv'st in all this sky and sea 
That likewise lovingly do live in thee, 
So melt my soul in thee, and thine in me. 
Divine Tranquillity ! 

Gray Pelican, poised where yon broad shallows shine, 

Know'st thou, that finny foison all is mine 

In the bag below thy beak — yet thine, not less ? 

For God, of His most gracious friendliness. 

Hath wrought that every soul, this loving morn. 

Into all things may be new-corporate born, 

And each live whole in all : I sail with thee, 

Thy Pelican's self is mine ; yea, silver Sea, 

In this large moment all thy fishes, ripples, bights. 
Pale in-shore greens and distant blue delights. 
White visionary sails, long reaches fair 
By moon-horn'd strands that film the far-off air, 

Bright sparkle-revelations, secret majesties, 

Shells, wrecks and wealths, are mine ; yea, Orange-trees, 
That lift your small world-systems in the light, 
Rich sets of round green heavens studded bright 
With globes of fruit that like still planets shine, 
Mine is your green-gold universe ; yea, mine, 
White slender Lighthouse fainting to the eye 
That wait'st on yon keen cape-point wistfully. 
Like to some maiden spirit pausing pale, 
New-wing'd, yet fain to sail 

Above the serene Gulf to where a bridegroom soul 
Calls o'er the soft horizon — mine thy dole 
Of shut undaring wings and wan desire — 
Mine, too, thy later hope and heavenly fire 
Of kindling expectation ; yea, all sights. 
All sounds, that make this morn — quick flights 



144 A FLORIDA SUNDAY. 

Of pea-green paroquets 'twixt neighbor trees, 

Like missives and sweet morning inquiries 

From green to green, in green — live oaks' round heads, 

Busy with jays for thoughts — grays, whites and reds 

Of pranked woodpeckers that ne'er gossip out, 

But alway tap at doors and gad about — 

Robins and mocking-birds that all day long 

Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song, 

Shuttles of music — clouds of mosses gray 

That rain me rains of pleasant thoughts alway 

From a low sky of leaves — faint yearning psalms 

Of endless metre breathing through the palms 

That crowd and lean and gaze from off the shore ' 

Ever for one that cometh nevermore — * 

i 
Palmettos ranked, with childish spear-points set i 

Against no enemy — rich cones that fret J 

High roofs of temples shafted tall with pines — 

Green, grateful mangroves where the sand-beach shines^ 

Long lissome coast that in and outward swerves, 

The grace of God made manifest in curves — 

All riches, goods and braveries never told 

Of earth, sun, air and heaven — now I hold 

Your being in my being ; I am ye. 

And ye myself; yea, lastly, Thee, 

God, whorii my roads all reach, howe'er they run, 

My Father, Friend, Beloved, dear All-One, 

Thee in my soul, my soul in Thee, I feel. 

Self of my self. Lo, through my sense doth steal 

Clear cognizance of all selves and qualities, 

Of all existence that hath been or is. 

Of all strange haps that men miscall of chance, 

And all the works of tireless circumstance : 

Each borders each, like mutual sea and shore, 

Nor aught misfits his neighbor that 's before. 



A FLORIDA SUNDAY. I45 

Nor him that 's after — nay, through this still air, 
Out of the North come quarrels, and keen blare 
Of challenge by the hot-breath'd parties blown ; 
Yet break they not this peace with alien tone. 
Fray not my heart, nor fright mc for my land, 
— I hear from all-wards, allwise understand, 
The great bird Purpose bears me twixt her wings. 
And I am one with all the kinsmen things 
That e'er my Father fathered. Oh, to me 
All questions solve in this tranquillity : 
E'en this dark matter, once so dim, so drear. 
Now shines upon my spirit heavenly-clear: 
Thou, Father, without logic, tellest me 
How this divine denial true may be, 
— How All 's in each, yet every one of all 
Maintains his Self complete and several 

Tampa, Florida, 1877. 

7 



146 TO MY CLASb. 



41 



TO MY CLASS: 

ON CERTAIN FRUITS AND FLOWERS SENT ME IN SICKNESS 

If spicy-fringed pinks that blush and pale 
With passions of perfume, — if violets blue 
That hint of heaven witti odor more than hue, — 
If perfect roses, each a holy Grail 
Wherefrom the blood of beauty doth exhale 

Grave raptures round,— if leaves of green as new 
As those fresh chaplets wove in dawn and dew 
By Emily when down the Athenian vale 
She paced, to do observance to the May, 

Nor dreamed of Arcite nor of Palamon, — 
If fruits that riped in some more riotous play 

Of wind and beam than stirs our temperate sun, — 
If these the products be of love and pain, 
Oft may I suffer, and you love, again. 

Baltimorb, Christmas, 1880. 



ON VIOLET'S WAFERS. I47 



ON VIOLET'S WAFERS, 

SENT ME WHEN I WAS ILL. 

FINE-TISSUED as her finger-tips, and white 

As all her thoughts ; in shape like shields of prize. 
As if before young Violet's dreaming eyes 

Still blazed the two great Theban bucklers bright 

That swayed the random of that furious fight 
Where Palamon and Arcite made assize 
For Emily; fresh, crisp as her replies, 

That, not with sting, but pith, do oft invite 
More trial of the tongue ; simple, like her, 

Well fitting lovvlihood, yet fine as well, 

— The queen's no finer ; rich (though gossamer) 

In help to him they came to, which may tell 

How rich that him she '// come to ; thua men see. 
Like Violet's self e'en Violet's wafers be. 

Baltimorb, 1881. 



148 IRELAND. 



IRELAND. 

WRITTEN FOR THE ART AUTOGRAPH DURING THE IRISH 
FAMINE, 1880. 

Heartsome Ireland, winsome Ireland, 

Charmer of the sun and sea, 
Bright beguiler of old anguish. 

How could Famine frown on thee ? 

As our Gulf-Stream, drawn to thee-ward, 
Turns him from his northward flow, 

And our wintry western headlands 
Send thee summer from their snow, 

Thus the main and cordial current 

Of our love sets over sea, — 
Tender, comely, valiant Ireland, 
Songful, soulful, sorrowful Ireland,— 

Streaming warm to comfort thee. 

&^t.TiMORS, i88a 



UNDER THE CEDARCROFT CHESTNUT. 149 



UNDER THE CEDARCROFT CHESTNUT 

Trim set in ancient sward, his manful bole 
Upbore his frontage largely toward the sky. 

We could not dream but that he had a soul : 
What virtue breathed from out his bravery ! 

We gazed o'erhead : far down our deepening eyes 
Rained glamours from his green midsummer mass. 

The worth and sum of all his centuries 
Suffused his mighty shadow on the grass. 

A Presence large, a grave and steadfast Form 
Amid the leaves' light play and fantasy, 

A calmness conquered out of many a storm, 
A Manhood mastered by a chestnut-tree ! 

Then, while his monarch fingers downward held 
The rugged burrs wherewith his state was rife, 

A voice of large authoritative Eld 

Seemed uttering quickly parables of life : 

Ho7u Life in truth was sharply set with ills s 
A kernel cased in quarrels ; yea, a sphere 

Of stings, and hedge- hog-round of mortal quills : 
How most men itched to eat too soon i' the year, 

And took but wounds and worries for their pains ^ 
Whereas the wise withheld their patient hands. 

Nor plucked green pleasures till the sun and rains 
And seasonable ripenings burst all bands 



150 UNDER THE CEDARCROFT CHESTNUT. 

And opened wide the liberal burrs of life. 

There, O my Friend, beneath the chestnut bough, 
Gazing on thee immerged in modern strife, 

I framed a prayer of fervency — that thou, 

In soul and stature larger than thy kind, 

Still more to this strong Form might'st liken theej 

Till thy whole Self in every fibre find 

The tranquil lordship of thy chestnut tree. . 

Tampa, Florida, February, 1877. 



EVENING SONG. 151 



EVENING SONG. 

Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands, 
And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea, 
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands. 
Ah ! longer, longer, we. 

Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun. 

As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine. 
And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'Tis done. 
Love, lay thine hand in mine. 

Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart 

Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands. 
O night ! divorce our sun and sky apart 
Never our lips, our hands. 



18761 



152 A SUNRISE SONG. 



A SUNRISE SONG.' 

Young palmer sun, that to these shining sands 
Pourest thy pilgrim's tale, discoursing still 

Thy silver passages of sacred lands, 

With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill, 

Canst thou be he that, yester-sunset warm, 
Purple with Paynim rage and wrack desire, 

Dashed ravening out of a dusty lair of Storm, 
Harried the west, and set the world on fire ? 

Hast thou perchance repented, Saracen Sun ? 

Wilt warm the world with peace and dove-desire ? 
Or wilt thou, ere this very day be done. 

Blaze Saladin still, with unforgiving fire ? 

Baltimorb, i88i. 

* " A Sunrise Song " leads a group of seven short poems over- 
looked in earlier editions. Six of these, beginning with " On A 
Palmetto," were unrevised pencillings of late date, excepting the hnes 
of 1866 to J. D. H. 



ON A PALMETTO. l%l 



ON A PALMETTO. 

Through all that year-scarred agony of height, 
Unblest of bough or bloom, to where expands 
His wandy circlet with his bladed bands 
Dividing every wind, or loud or light. 
To termless hymns of love and old despite, 
Yon tall palmetto in the twilight stands. 
Bare Dante of these purgatorial sands 
That glimmer marginal to the monstrous night. 
Comes him a Southwind from the scented vine, 
It breathes of Beatrice through all his blades, 
North, East or West, Guelph-wind or Ghibelline 
'Tis shredded into music down the shades ; 
All sea-breaths, land-breaths, systol, diastol, 
Sway, minstrels of that grief-melodious Soul. 



s88a 



IS4 STRUGGLE. 



STRUGGLE. 

My soul is like the oar that momently 

Dies in a desperate stress beneath the wave, 

Then glitters out again and sweeps the sea : 

Each second I'm new-born from some new grave. 



CONTROL. 155 



CONTROL. 

O Hunger, Hunger, I will harness thee 
And make thee harrow all my spirit's glebe. 
Of old the blind bard Herve sang so sweet 
He made a wolf to plow his land. 



156 TO J. D. H. 



TO J. D. H. 

(KILLED AT SURREY C. H., OCTOBER, 1866.) 



Dear friend, forgive a wild lament 

Insanely following thy flight. 
I would not cumber thine ascent 

Nor drag thee back into the night ; 

But the great sea-winds sigh with me, 
The fair-faced stars seem wrinkled, old, 

And I would that I might lie with thee 
There in the grave so cold, so cold ! 

Grave walls are thick, I cannot see thee, 
And the round skies are far and steep ; 

A-wild to quaff some cup of Lethe, 
Pain is proud and scorns to weep. 

My heart breaks if it cling about thee, 
And still breaks, if far from thine. 

O drear, drear death, to live without thee, 
O sad life — to keep thee mine. 



MAKSII HYMNS. 1 57 



MARSH HYMNS. 

BETWEEN DAWN AND SUNRISE. 

Were silver pink, and had a soul, 

Which soul were shy, which shyness might 

A visible influence be, and roll 
Through heaven and earth — 'twere thou, O light ! 

O rhapsody of the wraith of red, 

O blush but yet in prophecy, 
O sun-hint that hath overspread 

Sky, marsh, my soul, and yonder saiL 



158 THOU AND I. 



THOU AND I. 

So one in heart and thought, I trow, 

That thou might'st press the strings and I might draw the 

bow 
And both would meet in music sweet, 
Thou and I, I trow. 

l88i. 



THE HARD TIMES IN ELFLAND. 1 59 



THE HARD TIMES IN ELFLAND. 

A STORY OF CHRISTMAS EVE. 

Strange that the termagant winds should scold 

The Christmas Eve so bitterly ! 
But Wife, and Harry the four-year-old, 

Big Charley, Nimblewits, and I, 

Blithe as the wind was bitter, drew 
More frontward of the mighty fire, 

Where wise Newfoundland Fan foreknew 
The heaven that Christian dogs desire — 

Stretched o'er the rug, serene and grave, 
Huge nose on heavy paws reclined, 

With never a drowning boy to save. 

And warmth of body and peace of mind. 

And, as our happy circle sat, 

The fire well capp'd the company : 

In grave debate or careless chat, 
A right good fellow, mingled he : 

He seemed as one of us to sit, 

And talked of things above, below, 

With flames more winsome than our wit. 
And coals that burned like love aglow. 



iCo THE HARD TIMES IN ELFLAND. 

While thus our rippling discourse rolled 
Smooth down the channel of the night, 

We spoke of Time : thereat, one told 
A parable of the Seasons' flight. 

** Time was a Shepherd with four sheep. 
In a certain Field he long abode. 
He stood by the bars, and his flock bade leap 
One at a time to the Common Road. 

** And first there leapt, like bird on wing, 
A lissome Lamb that played in the air. 
I heard the Shepherd call him Spring : 
Oh, large-eyed, fresh and snowy fair 

** He skipped the flowering Highway fast. 
Hurried the hedgerows green and white. 
Set maids and men a-yearning, passed 
The Bend, and gamboU'd out of sight. 

** And next marched forth a matron Ewe 
(While Time took down a bar for her), 
Udder'd so large 'twas much ado 
E'en then to clear the barrier. 

** Full softly shone her silken fleece 

What stately time she paced along : 
Each heartsome hoof- stroke wrought increase 
Of sunlight, substance, seedling, song, 

** In flower, in fruit, in field, in bird. 

Till the great globe, rich fleck'd and pied. 
Like some large peach half pinkly furred, 
Turned to the sun a glowing side 



THE HARD TIMES ]N ELFLAND. l6l 

" And hung in the heavenly orchard, bright, 
None-such, complete. 

Then, while the Ewe 
Slow passed the Bend, a blur of light, 
The Shepherd's face in sadness grew : 

•* * Summer ! ' he said, as one would say 
A sigh in syllables. So, in haste 
(For shame of Summer's long delay. 
Yet gazing still what way she paced), 

" He summoned Autumn, slanting down 
The second bar. Thereover strode 
A Wether, fleeced in burning brown, 
And largely loitered down the Road. 

" Far as the farmers sight his shape 
Majestic moving o'er the way. 
All cry To harvest, crush the grape. 
And haul the corn and house the hay, 

" Till presently, no man can say, 

(So brown the woods that line that end) 
If yet the brown-fleeced Wether may, 
Or not, have passed beyond the Bend. 

" Now turn I towards the Shepherd : lo, 
An aged Ram, flapp'd, gnarly-horn'd, 
With bones that crackle o'er the snow, 

Rheum'd, wind-gall'd, rag-fleec'd, burr'd and thorn'd. 

" Time takes the third bar off for him, 
He totters down the windy lane. 
'Tis Winter, still : the Bend lies dim. 

O Lamb, would thou wouldst leap again 1" 



l62 THE HARD TtMES IN ELFLAND. 

Those seasons out, we talked of these : 
And I (with inward purpose sly 

To shield my purse from Christmas trees 
And stockings and wild robbery 

When Hal and Nimblewits invade 
My cash in Santa Claus's name) 

In full the hard, hard times surveyed ; 
Denounced all waste as crime and shame 

Hinted that " waste " might be a term 

Including skates, velocipedes, 
Kites, marbles, soldiers, towers infirm, 

Bows, arrows, cannon, Indian reeds, 

Cap-pistols, drums, mechanic toys, 
And all th' infernal host of horns 

Whereby to strenuous hells of noise 

Are turned the blessed Christmas morns •, 

Thus, roused — those horns ! — to sacred rage, 

I rose, forefinger high in air. 
When Harry cried {some war to wage), 

" Papa, is hard times ev'ywhere ? 

** Maybe in Santa Claus's land 

It isn't hard times none at all ! " 
Now, blessed Vision ! to my hand 
Most pat, a marvel strange did fall. 

Scarce had my Harry ceased, when " Look ! 

He cried, leapt up in wild alarm. 
Ran to my Comrade, shelter took 

Beneath the startled mother's arm. 



THE HARD TIMES IN ELFLAND.. J63 

And so was still : what time we saw 

A foot hang down the fireplace ! Then, 

With painful scrambling scratched and raw, 
Two hands that seemed like hands of men 

Eased down two legs and a body through 
The blazing fire, and forth there came 

Before our wide and wondering view 
A figure shrinking half with shame, 

And half with weakness. " Sir," I said, 

— But with a mien of dignity 
The seedy stranger raised his head : 

** My friends, I 'm Santa Claus," said he. 

But oh, how changed ! That rotund face 
The new moon rivall'd, pale and thin ; 

Where once was cheek, now empty space ; 
Whate'er stood out, did now stand in. 

His piteous legs scarce propped him up ; 

His arms mere sickles seemed to be : 
But most o'erflowed our sorrow's cup 

When that we saw — or did not see — • 

His belly : we remembered how 

It shook like a bowl of jelly fine : 
An earthquake could not shake it now ; 

He had no belly — not a sign. 

** Yes, yes, old friends, you well may stare ; 

I have seen better days," he said : 
" But now, with shrinkage, loss and care, 

Your Santa Claus scarce owns his head. 



l64 THE HARD TIMES IN ELFLAND. 

** We've had such hard, hard times this year 
For gobhns ! Never knew the like. 
All Elfland's mortgaged ! And we fear 
The gnomes are just about to strike. 

** I once was rich, and round, and hale. 

The whole world called me jolly brick ; 
But listen to a piteous tale. 

Young Harry, — Santa Claus is sick ! 

** 'Twas thus : a smooth-tongued railroad man 
Comes to my house and talks to me : 
* I've got,' says he, ' a little plan 
That sjtits this nineteenth century. 

" * Instead of tiriving, as you do. 

Six reindeer slow from house to house, 
Let 's build a Grand Trunk Railway through 
From here to earth'' s last terminus. 

** * We 'II touch at every chimney-top 
(An Elevated Track, of course). 
Then, as we ivhisk you by, you 'II drop 
Each package down : Just think, the force 

** ' You 'II save, the time ! — Besides, we 'II make 

Our milliotis : look you, soon we will 

Compete for freights — a7id then we 'II take 

Dame Fortune's bales of good and ill 

*' * ( Why, she 's the biggest shipper, sir. 

That e'er did business in this world /) : 
Then Death, that ceaseless Traveller, 
Shall on his rounds by us be whirled. 



THE HARD TIMES IN ELFLAND. 16$ 

*' * When ghosts return to walk with men, 

WeHl bring V/« cheap by steam, and fast: 
We 7/ run a Branch to heaven ! and then 
We HI riot, man ; for thefi, at last 

** * We HI make with heaven a contract fair 

To call, each hour , from town to town, 
And carry the dead folks' souls up there. 
And bring the unborn babies down ! * 

** The plan seemed fair : I gave him cash, 
Nay, every penny I could raise. 
My wife e'er cried, ' ^Tis rash, His rash : * 
How could I know the stock-thief's ways? 

** But soon I learned full well, poor fool ! 
My woes began, that wretched day. 
The President plied me like a tool. 
In lawyer's fees, and rights of way, 

** Injunctions, leases, charters, I 

Was meshed as in a mighty maze. 
The stock ran low, the talk ran high : 
Then quickly flamed the final blaze. 

** With never an inch of track — 'tis true ! 

The debts were large . . . the oft-told tale. 
The President rolled in splendor new 
— He bought my silver at the sale. 

" Yes, sold me out : we've moved away. 
I 've had to give up everything. 
My reindeer, even, whom 1 . . . pray. 
Excuse me "... here, o'er-sorrowing, 



l6G THE HARD TIMES IN ELFLAND. 

Poor Santa Claus burst into tears, 

Then calmed again : " my reindeer fleet, 

I gave them up : on foot, my dears, 
I now must plod through snow and sleet. 

•' Retrenchment rules in Elfland, now; 
Yes, every luxury is cut off. 
— Which, by the way, reminds me how 
I caught this dreadful hacking cough : 

** I cut off the tail of my Ulster furred 
To make young Kris a coat of state. 
That very night the storm occurred! 
Thus we become the sport of Fate. 

*' For I was out till after one, 

Surveying chimney-tops and roofs, 
And planning how it could be done 
Without my reindeers' bouncing hoofs. 

** 'My dear,^ says Mrs. Claus, that night 
(A most superior woman she !) 
* // never, never can be right 

That yon, deep-sunk in poverty, 

" * This year should leave your poor old bed. 
And trot about, bent down with toys, 
{There 's Kris a -crying now for bread. '^ 
To give to other people's boys. 

** * Since you ^ve been out, the news arrives 
The Elfs'' Insurance Cotnpany^s gone. 
Ah, Claus, those premiums / Now, our lives 
Depend on yours : thus griefs go on. 



THE HARD TIMES IN ELFLAND, 167 

*' * And even while you Wc thus harassed ^ 
I do believe, if out you went, 
You 'd go, in spite of all that 'j passed, 
To the children of that President / ' 

" Oh, Charley, Harry, Nimblewits, 

These eyes, that night, ne'er slept a wink. 
My path seemed honeycombed with pits. 
Naught could I do but think and think. 

" But, with the day, my courage rose. 

Ne'er shall my boys, viy boys (I cried). 
When Christmas morns their eyes unclose, 
Find empty stockings gaping wide ! 

" Then hewed and whacked and whittled I ; 
The wife, the girls and Kris took fire ; 
They spun, sewed, cut, — till by and by 
We made, at home, my pack entire ! " 

(He handed me a bundle, here.) 

" Now, hoist mc up : there, gently : quick? 
Dear boys, don^t look for much this year : 

Remember, Santa Claus is sick! " 

Baltimore, December, 1877. 



1 



DIALECT POEMS. 



i. 



A FLORIDA GHOST. I71 



A FLORIDA GHOST. 

Down mildest shores of milk-white sand, 

By cape and fair Floridian bay, 
Twixt billowy pines — a surf asleep on land — 
And the great Gulf at play, 

Past far-off palms that filmed to nought, 

Or in and out the cunning keys 
That laced the land like fragile patterns wrought 
To edge old broideries. 

The sail sighed on all day for joy, 

The prow each pouting wave did leave 
All smile and song, with sheen and ripple coy, 
Till the dusk diver Eve 

Brought up from out the brimming East 

The oval moon, a perfect pearl. 
In that large lustre all our haste surceased. 
The sail seemed fain to furl, 

The silent steersman landward turned, 

And ship and shore set breast to breast. 
Under a palm wherethrough a planet burned 
We ate, and sank to rest. 

But soon from sleep's dear death (it seemed) 

I rose and strolled along the sea 
Down silver distances that faintly gleamed 
On to Infinity. 



1/2 DIALECT POEMS. 

Till suddenly I paused, for lo ! 
A shape (from whence I ne'er divined) 
Appeared before me, pacing to and fro, 
With head far down inclined. 

A wraith (I thought) that walks the shore 
To solve some old perplexity. 
Full heavy hung the draggled gown he wore ; 
His hair flew all awry. 

He waited not (as ghosts oft use) 
To be dear heaven^ d / and oh'd / 
But briskly said : " Good-evenin' ; what 's the news ? 
Consumption ? After boa'd ? 

** Or mebbe you 're intendin' of 

Investments ? Orange-plantin' ? Pine ? 
Hotel ? or Sanitarium ? What above 
This yea'th can be your line ? 

** Speakin' of sanitariums, now, 

Jest look 'ee here, my friend : 
I know a little story, — well, I swow, 
Wait till you hear the end ! 

** Some year or more ago, I s'pose, 

I roamed from Maine to Floridy, 
And, — see where them Palmettos grows ? 
I bought that little key, 

«* Cal'latin' for to build right off 

A c'lossal sanitarium : 
Big surf! Gulf breeze ! Jest death upon a cough! 
- — I run it high, to hum ! 



A FLORIDA GHOST. 173 

'* Well, sir, I went to work in style : 

Bought me a steamboat, loaded it 
With my hotel (pyazers more 'n a mile 1) 
Already framed and fit, 

** Insured 'em, fetched 'em safe around, 

Put up my buildin', moored my boat, 
C?^«-plete ! then went to bed and slept as sound 
As if I 'd paid a note. 

*' Now on that very night a squall, 

Cum up from some'eres — some bad place ! 
An' blowed an' tore an' reared an' pitched an' all, 
— I had to run a race 

** Right out o' bed from that hotel 

An' git to yonder risin' ground. 
For, 'twixt the sea that riz and rain that fell, 
I pooty nigh was drowned ! 

" An' thar I stood till mornin' cum. 

Right on yon little knoll of sand, 
Freguently wishin' I had stayed to hum 
Fur from this tarnal land. 

** When mornin' cum, I took a good 

Long look, and — well, sir, sure 's I 'm »ie-^ 
That boat laid right whar that hotel had stood, 
And /lit sailed out to sea ! 

" No : I'll not keep you : good-bye, friend. 

Don't think about it much, — preehaps 
Your brain might git see-sawin', end for end, 
Like them asylum chaps. 



174 DIALECT POEMS. 

" For here /walk, forevermore, 

A-tryin' to make it gee, 
How one same wind could blow my ship to shore 
And my hotel to sea ! " 

Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, 1877. 



UNCLE JIM'S BAPTIST REVIVAL HYMN. 1 75 



UNCLE JIM'S BAPTIST REVIVAL HYMN. 

BY SIDNEY AND CLIFFORD LANIER. 

[Not long ago a certain Georgia cotton-planter, driven to despera- 
tion by awaking each morning to find that the grass had quite out- 
grown the cotton overnight, and was likely to choke it, in defiance of 
his lazy freedmen's hoes and ploughs, set the whole State in a laugh by 
exclaiming to a group of fellow-sufferers : " It's all stuff about Cincin- 
natus leaving the plough to go into pohlics /or J>airtoiism ; he was just 
a-runnin' from grass ! 

This state of things — when the delicate young rootlets of the cotton 
are struggling against the hardier multitudes of the grass-suckers — is 
universally described in plantation parlance by the phrase " in the 
grass ; " and Uncle Jim appears to have found in it so much similarity 
to the condition of his own (" Baptis' ") church, overrun, as it was, by 
the cares of this world, that he has embodied it in the refrain of a re- 
vival hymn such as the colored improvisator of the South not infre- 
quently constructs from his daily surroundings. He has drawn all the 
ideas of his stanzas from the early morning phenomena of those critical 
weeks when the loud plantation-horn is blown before daylight, in order 
to rouse all hands for a long day's fight against the common enemy of 
cotton-planting mankind. 

In addition to these exegetical commentaries, the Northern reader 
probably needs to be informed that the phrase " peerten up " means 
tubstantially ia sj>ur up, and is an active form of the adjective " peert " 
(probably a corruption oi pert), which is so common in the South, and 
which has much the signification of " smart " in New England, as e.g., 
a " peert " horse, in antithesis to a " sorry " — i.e., poor, mean, lazy one.] 

Solo. — Sin's rooster 's crowed, Ole Mahster 's riz, 
De sleepin'-time is pas' ; 
Wake up dem lazy Baptissis, 
Chorus. — Dey^s mightily in de grass, grass, 
Dey 's mightily in de grass. 

Ole Mahster 's blowed de mornin' horn. 

He 's blowed a powerful bias' ; 
O Baptis' come, come hoe de corn, 

You ^s mightily in de grass, grass ^ 
You 's mightily in de grass. 



176 DIALECT POEMS. 

De Meth'dis team 's done hitched ; O fool, 

De day 's a-breakin' fas' ; 
Gear up dat lean ole Baptis' mule, 

Dey^s mightily in de grass, grass ^ 

Dey^s mightily in de grass. 

De workmen 's few an' mons'rous slow, 

De cotton 's sheddin' fas' ; 
Whoop, look, jes' look at de Baptis' row, 

Hit 's mightily in de grass, grass ^ 

Hifs mightily in de grass. 

De jay-bird squeal to de mockin'-bird : "Stop I 

Don' gimme none o' yo' sass ; 
Better sing one song for de Baptis' crop, 

Dey 'j- mightily in de grass, grass^ 

Dey 'i' mightily in de grass. ^^ 

And de ole crow croak : " Don' work, no, no ; " 
But de fiel'-lark say, " Yaas, yaas. 

An' I spec' you mighty glad, you debblish crow, 
Dat de Baptis sis ^s in de grass, grass ^ 
Dat de Baptissis ^s in de grass / " 

Lord, thunder us up to de plowin'-match. 

Lord, peerten de hoein' fas', 
Yea, Lord, hab mussy on de Baptis' patch, 

Dey^s mightily in de grass, grass^ 

Dey 's mightily in de grass. 



t876. 



NINE FROM EIGHT. 1 77 



NINE FROM EIGHT. 

I WAS drivin' my two-mule waggin, 

With a lot o' truck for sale, 

Towards Macon, to git some baggin* 

(Which my cotton was ready to bale), 

And I come to a place on the side o' the pike 

Whar a peert little winter branch jest had throw'd 

The sand in a kind of a sand-bar like, 

And I seed, a leetle ways up the road, 

A man squattin' down, like a big bull-toad, 

On the ground, a-figgerin' thar in the sand 

With his finger, and motionin' with his hand, 

And he looked like Ellick Garry. 
And as 1 driv up, I heerd him bleat 
To hisself, like a lamb : " Hauh ? nine from eight 

Leaves nuthin' — and none to carry ?" 



And Ellick's bull-cart was standin' 
A cross-wise of the way, 
And the little bull was a-expandin*, 
Hisself on a wisp of hay. 
But Ellick he sat with his head bent down, 
A-studyin' and musin' powerfully. 
And his forrud was creased with a turrible frown, 
And he was a-wurken' appearently 
A 'rethmetic sum that wouldn't gee, 
8 



178 DIALECT rOEMS. 

Fur he kep' on figgerin' away in the sand 
With his finger, and motionin' with his hand, 

And I seed it was Elhck Garry. 
And agin I heard him softly bleat 
To hisself, like a lamb : " Hauh ? nine from eight 

Leaves nuthin' — and none to carry I " 



I woa'd my mules mighty easy 
(Ellick's back was towards the road 
And the wind hit was sorter breezy) 
And I got down ofif'n my load, 
And I crep' up close to Ellick's back, 
And I heerd him a-talkin' softly, thus : 
*' Them figgers is got me under the hack. 
I caint see how to git out'n the muss, 
Except to jest nat'ally fail and bus' ! 
My crap-leen calls for nine hundred and more. 
My counts o' sales is eight hundred and four, 

Of cotton for EUick Garry. 
Thar's eight, ought, four, jest like on a slate : 
Here 's nine and two oughts — Hauh ? nine from eigfr' 

Leaves nuthin' — and none to carry. 

^* Them crap-leens, oh, them crap-leens 1 
I giv one to Pardman and Sharks, 
Hit gobbled me up like snap-beans 
In a patch full o' old fiel'-larks. 
But I thought I could fool the crap-leen nice, 
And I hauled my cotton to Jammel and Cones. 
But shuh ; 'fore I even had settled my price 
They tuck affidavy without no bones 
And levelled upon me fur all ther loans 
To the 'mount of sum nine hundred dollars or more 
And sold me out clean for eight hundred and four. 



NINE FROM EIGHT. j^g 

As sure as I'm Ellick Garry ! 
And thar it is down all squar and straight, 
But I can't make it gee, fur nine from eight 

Leaves nuthin' — and none to carry." 

Then I says " Hello, here, Garry! 

However you star' and frown 

Thare 's somethin' (nr yo7( to carry. 

Fur you 've worked it upside down ! " 

Then he riz and walked to his little bull-cart, 

And made like he neither had seen nor heerd 

Nor knowed that I knowed of his raskilly part, 

And he tried to look as if /le wa'nt feared, 

And gathered his lines like he never keered, 

And he driv down the road 'bout a quarter or so, 

And then looked around, and I hollered " Hello, 

Look here, Mister Ellick Garry ! 
You may git up soon and lie down late, 
But you'll always find that nine from eight 

Leaves nuthin' — and none to carry." 

Macon, Gborcia, 1870. 



II 



150 DIALECT POEMS. 



IHAR'S MORE IN THE MAN THAN 
THAR IS IN THE LAND. 

I KNOWED a man, which he lived in Jones, 
"Which Jones is a county of red hills and stones, 
And he lived pretty much by gittin' of loans, 
And his mules was nuthin' but skin and bones. 
And his hogs was flat as his corn-bread pones. 
And he had 'bout a thousand acres o' land. 

This man — which his name it was also Jones — 

He swore that he 'd leave them old red hills and stone^ 

Fur he couldn't make nuthin' but yallerish cotton, 

And little o' that, and his fences was rotten. 

And what little corn he had, hit was boughten 

And dinged ef a livin' was in the land. 

And the longer he swore the madder he got, 
And he riz and he walked to the stable lot, 
And he hollered to Tom to come thar and hitch 
Fur to emigrate somewhar whar land was rich. 
And to quit raisin' cock-burrs, thistles and sich, 
And a wastin' ther time on the cussed land. 

So him and Tom they hitched up the mules, 
Pertestin' that folks was mighty big fools 
That *ud stay in Georgy ther lifetime out, 
Jest scratchin' a livin' when all of 'em mought 
Git places in Texas whar cotton would sprout 
. By the time you could plant it in the land. 



THAR'S MORE IN THE MAN. i8l 

Ancf he driv by a house whar a man named Brown 
Was a livin', not fur from the edge o' town, 
And he bantered Brown fur to buy his place. 
And said that bein' as money was skace, 
And bein' as sheriffs was hard to face. 
Two dollars an acre would git the land. 

They closed at a dollar and fifty cents, 

And Jones he bought him a waggin and tents. 

And loaded his corn, and his wimmin, and truck, 

And moved to Texas, which it tuck 

His entire pile, with the best of luck, 

To git thar and git him a little land. 

But Brown moved out on the old Jones' farm. 
And he rolled up his breeches and bared his arm. 
And he picked all the rocks from off'n the groun% 
And he rooted it up and he plowed it down, 
Then he sowed his corn and his wheat in the land. 



Five years glid by, and Brown, one day 

(Which he 'd got so fat that he wouldn't weigh). 

Was a settin' down, sorter lazily. 

To the bulliest dinner you ever see, 

When one o' the children jumped on his knee 

And says, ** Yan 's Jones, which you bought his land/ 

And thar was Jones, standin' out at the fence, 
And he hadn't no waggin, nor mules, nor tents. 
Fur he had left Texas afoot and cum 
To Georgy to see if he couldn't git sum 
Employment, and he was a lookin' as hun^ 
Ble as ef he had never owned any land. 



1 82 DIALECT POEMS. 

But Brown he axed him in, and he sot 

Him down to his vittles smokin' hot, 

And when he had filled hisself and the floor 

Brown looked at him sharp and riz and swore 

That, "whether men's land was rich or poor 

Thar was more in the man than thar was in the land.* 

Macon, Georgia, 1869. 



V 



JONES'S PRIVATE ARGYMENT. 183 



JONES'S PRIVATE ARGYMENT 

That air same Jones, which hved in Jones, 

He had this pint about him : 
He'd swear with a hundred sighs and groans, 
That farmers must stop gittin' loans, 

And git along without *em : 

That bankers, warehousemen^ and sich 

Was fatt'nin' on the planter. 
And Tennessy was rotten-rich 
A-raisin' meat and corn, all which 

Draw'd money to Atlanta : 

And the only thing (says Jones) to do 
Is, eat no meat that 's boughten : 

But tear up every I, O, U, 

And plant all corn and swear for true 
To quit a-raisin^ cotton / 

Thus spouted Jones (whar folks could hear, 
— At Court and other gatherin's). 

And thus kep' spoutin' many a year, 

Proclaimin' loudly far and near 

Sich fiddlesticks and blatherin's. 

But, one all- fired sweatin' day. 

It happened 1 was hoein' 
My lower corn-field, which it lay 
'Longside the road that runs my way 

Whar I can see what's goin*, 



1 84 DIALECT POEMS. 

And a'ter twelve o'clock had come 

I felt a kinder faggin', 
And laid myself un'neath a plum 
To let my dinner settle sum, 

When 'long come Jones's waggin, 

And Jones was settin' in it, so : 

A-readin' of a paper. 
His mules was goin' powerful slow, 
Fur he had tied the lines onto 

The staple of the scraper. 

The mules they stopped about a rod 

From me, and went to feedin' 
'Longside the road, upon the sod, 
But Jones (which he had tuck a tod) 

Not knowin', kept a-readin'. 

And presently says he : " Hit 's true ; 

That Clisby's head is level. 
Thar 's one thing farmers all must do. 
To keep themselves from goin' tew 

Bankruptcy and the devil ! 

** More corn ! more corn ! musf plant less ground, 
And musMt eat what 's boughten ! 
Next year they '11 do it : reasonin 's sound : 
(And, cotton will fetch 'bout a dollar a pound), 
Thar/ore, I '// plant all cotton ! " 

Macon, Gborgia, 187a 



THE POWER OF PRAYEK. 185 



THE POWER OF PRAYER ; OR, THE FIRST 
STEAMBOAT UP THE ALABAMA. 

BY SIDNEY AND CLIFFORD LANIER. 

You, Dinah ! Come and set me whar de ribber-roads does 

meet. 
De Lord, He made dese black-jack roots to twis' into a seat. 
Umph, dar I De Lord have mussy on dis blin' ole nigger's 

feet. 

It 'pear to me dis mornin' I kin smell de fust o' June. 
I 'clar', I b'lieve dat mockin'-bird could playde fiddle soon ! 
Dem yonder town-bells sounds like dey was ringin' in de 
moon. 

Well, ef dis nigger is been blind for fo'ty year or mo', 
Dese ears, dey sees the world, like, th'u' de cracks dat's in 

de do'. 
For de Lord has built dis body wid de windows 'hind and 'fo'. 

I know my front ones is stopped up, and things is sort o' 

dim, 
But den, th'u* dem, temptation's rain won't leak In on ole 

Jim! 
De back ones show me earth enough, aldo' dey 's mons'ous 

slim. 

And as for Hebben, — bless de Lord, and praise His holy 

name — 
Dat shines in all de co'ners of dis cabin jes' de same 
As ef dat cabin hadn't nar' a plank upon de frame ! 



1 86 DIALECT POEMS. 

Who ra// me ? Listen down de ribber, Dinah! Don't you 

hyar 
Somebody hoU'in' " Hoo, 'Jim, koo?'^ My Sarah died las' 

y'ar ; 
fs dat black angel done come back to call ole Jim fom hyar ? 

My stars, dat cain'tbe Sarah, shuh ! Jes' listen, Dinah, now! 
What km be comin' up dat bend, a-makin' sich a row ? 
Fus' bellerin' like a pawin' bull, den squealin' like a sow? 

De Lord 'a' mussy sakes alive, jes' hear, — ker-woof, ker- 

woof — 
De Debbie 's comin' round dat bend, he 's comin' shuh enuff, 
A-splashin' up de water wid his tail and wid his hoof I 

I'se pow'ful skeered ; but neversomeless I ain't gwine run 

away : 
I 'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis blessed day. 
You screech, and swish de water, Satan ! I 'se a gwine to 

pray. 

hebbenly Marster, what thou wiliest, dat mus' be jes' so, 
And ef Thou hast bespoke de word, some nigger 's bound to 

go. 
Den, Lord, please take ole Jim, and lef young Dinah hyar 
below ! 

'Scuse Dinah, 'scuse her, Marster ; for she 's sich a little chile, 
She hardly jes' begin to scramble up de homeyard stile, 
But dis ole traveller's feet been tired dis many a many a mile. 

I'se wufless as de rotten pole of las' year's fodder-stack. 
De rheumatiz done bit my bones ; you hear 'em crack and 
crack ? 

1 cain'st sit down 'dout gruntin' like 'twas breakin' o* my 

back. 



THE POWER OF PRAYER. 187 

What use de wheel, when hub and spokes is warped and 
split, and rotten ? 

What use dis dried-up cotton-stalk, when Life done picked 
my cotton ? 

I'se like a word dat somebody said, and den done been for- 
gotten. 

But, Dinah ! Shuh dat gal jes' like dis little hick'ry tree, 
De sap 's jes^ risin in her ; she do grow owdaciouslee — 
Lord, ef you 's clarin' de underbrush, don't cut her down, cut 
me ! 



I would not proud persume — but I'll boldly make reques' ; 
Sence Jacob had dat wrastlin'-match, I, too, gwine do my 

bes' ; 
When Jacob got all underholt, de Lord he answered Yes ! 

And what for waste de vittles, now, and th'ow away de 

bread, 
Jes' for to strength dese idle hands to scratch dis ole bald 

head ? 
T'ink of de 'conomy, Marster, ef dis ole Jim was dead ! 

Stop ; — ef I don't believe de Debbie 's gone on up de stream ! 
Jes' now he squealed down dar ; — hush; dat's a mighty 

weakly scream ! 
Yas, sir, he 's gone, he's gone ; — he snort way off, like in a 

dream ! 

glory hallelujah to de Lord dat reigns on high ! 

De Debbie 's fai'ly skeered to def, he done gone flyin' by ; 

1 know'd he couldn' stand dat pra'r, I felt my Marster 

nigh I 



1 88 DIALECT POEMS. 

You, Dinah ; ain't you 'shamed, now, dat you didn' trust to 

grace ? 
I heard you thrashin' th'u' de bushes when he showed his 

face ! 
You fool, you think de Debbie couldn't heat jfou in a race ? 

I tell you, Dinah, jes' as shuh as you is standin' dar, 

When folks starts prayin', answer-angels drops down th'u' 

de a'r. 
Vas, Dinahy whar ^ouldyou be now Jes" ^ceptin^fur datpra'r f 

Baltimore, 1875. 



UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



These unre vised poems are not necessarily exponents of Mr. 
Lanier's later teaching, but are offered as examples of his 
youthful spirit, his earlier methods and his instructive growtli. 
To many friends they present in addition a wealth of dear asso- 
ciations. But, putting Mr, Lanier upon trial as an artist, it is 
fair to remember that probably none of these poems would have 
been republished by him without material alterations, the 
slightest of which no other hand can be authorized to make. 



THE JACQUERIE— A FRAGMENT. 191 



THE JACOUERIE-A FRAGMENT. 

CHAPTER I. 

Once on a time, a Dawn, all red and bright 

Leapt on the conquered ramparts of the Night, 

And flamed, one brilliant instant, on the world. 

Then back into the historic moat was hurled 

And Night was King again, for many years. 

— Once on a time the Rose of Spring blushed out 

But Winter angrily withdrew it back 

Into his rough new-bursten husk, and shut 

The stern husk-leaves, and hid it many years. 

— Once Famine tricked himself with ears of corn, 

And Hate strung flowers on his spiked belt, 

And glum Revenge in silver lilies pranked him, 

And Lust put violets on his shameless front. 

And all minced forth o' the street like holiday folk 

That sally off afield on Summer morns. 

— Once certain hounds that knew of many a chase, 

And bare great wounds of antler and of tusk 

That they had ta'en to give a lord some sport, 

— Good hounds, that would have died to give lords sport — 

Were so bewrayed and kicked by these same lords 

That all the pack turned tooth o' the knights and bit 

As knights had been no better things than boars, 

And took revenge as bloody as a man's, 

Unhoundlike, sudden, hot i' the chops, and sweet. 

— Once sat a falcon on a lady's wrist, 

Seeming to doze, with wrinkled eye-lid drawn, 

But dreaming hard of hoods and slaveries 

And of dim hungers in his heart and wings. 



w 



192 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

Then, while the mistress gazed above for game, 

Sudden he flew into her painted face 

And hooked his horn-claws in her lily throat 

And drove his beak into her lips and eyes 

In fierce and hawkish kissing that did scar 

And mar the lady's beauty evermore. 

— And once while Chivalry stood tall and lithe 

And flashed his sword above the stricken eyes 

Of all the simple peasant-folk of France : 

While Thought was keen and hot and quick, 

And did not play, as in these later days, 

Like summer-lightning flickering in the west 

— As little dreadful as if glow-worms lay 

In the cool and watery clouds and glimmered weak- 

But gleamed and struck at once or oak or man, 

And left not space for Time to wave his wing 

Betwixt the instantaneous flash and stroke : 

While yet the needs of life were brave and fierce 

And did not hide their deeds behind their words, 

And logic came not 'twixt desire and act, 

And Want-and-Take was the whole Form of life ; 

While Love had fires a-burning in his veins. 

And hidden Hate could flash into revenge : 

Ere yet young Trade was 'ware of his big thews 

Or dreamed that in the bolder afterdays 

He would hew down and bind old Chivalry 

And drag him to the highest height of fame 

And plunge him thence in the sea of still Romance 

To lie for aye in never-rusted mail 

Gleaming through quiet ripples of soft songs 

And sheens of old traditionary tales ; — 

On such a time, a certain May arose 

From out that blue Sea that between five lands 

Lies like a violet midst of five large leaves. 

Arose from out this violet and flew on 



THE JACQUERIE — A FRAGMENT. 193 

And stirred the spirits of the woods of France 

And smoothed th(i brows of moody Auvergne hills, 

And wrought warm sea-tints into maidens' eyes, 

And calmed the wordy air of market-towns 

With faint suggestions blown from distant buds, 

Until the land seemed a mere dream of land, 

And, in this dream-field Life sat like a dove 

And cooed across unto her dove-mate Death, 

Brooding, pathetic, by a river, lone. 

Oh, sharper tangs pierced through this perfumed May 

Strange aches sailed by with odors on the wind 

As when we kneel in flowers that grow on graves 

Of friends who died unworthy of our love. 

King John of France was proving such an ache 

In English prisons wide and fair and grand. 

Whose long expanses of green park and chace 

Did ape large liberty with such success 

As smiles of irony ape smiles of love. 

Down from the oaks of Hertford Castle park. 

Double with warm rose-breaths of southern Spring 

Came rumors, as if odors too had thorns. 

Sharp rumors, how the three Estates of France, 

Like old Three-headed Cerberus of Hell 

Had set upon the Duke of Normandy, 

Their rightful Regent, snarled in his great face. 

Snapped jagged teeth in inch-breadth of his throat 

And blown such hot and savage breath upon him, 

That he had tossed great sops of royalty 

Unto the clamorous, three-mawed baying beast 

And was not further on his way withal, 

And had but changed a snarl into a growl : 

How Arnold de Cervolles had ta'en the track 

That war had burned along the unhappy land, 

Shouting, since France is then foo poor to pay 

The soldiers that have bloody devoir done,. 



194 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

And since needs must, pardie ! a man must eaty 

Arm , gentlemen ! swords slice as well as knives ! 

And so had tempted stout men from the ranks, 

And now was adding robbers' waste to war's, 

SteaUng the leavings of remorseless battle, 

And making gaunter the gaunt bones of want : 

How this Cervolles (called " Arch-priest " by the mass) 

Through warm Provence had marched and menace made 

Against Pope Innocent at Avignon, 

And how the Pope nor ate nor drank nor slept, 

Through godly fear concerning his red wines. 

For if these knaves should sack hii holy house 

And all the blessed casks be knocked o' the head, 

Horrendtim ! all his Holiness' drink to be 

Profanely guzzled down the reeking throats 

Of scoundrels, and inflame them on to seize 

The massy coffers of the Church's gold. 

And steal, mayhap, the carven silver shrine 

And all the golden crucifixes ? No 1 — 

And so the holy father Pope made stir 

And had sent forth a legate to Cervolles, 

And treated with him, and made compromise. 

And, last, had bidden all the Arch-priest's troop 

To come and banquet with him in his house, 

Where they did wassail high by night and day ^ 

And Father Pope sat at the board and carved 

Midst jokes that flowed full greasily. 
And priest and soldier trolled good songs for mass. 
And all the prayers the Priests made were, pray, drink, 
And all the oaths the Soldiers swore were, drink! 
Till Mirth sat like a jaunty postilion '^ 

Upon the back of Time and urged him on 
With piquant spur, past chapel and past cross : 
How Charles, King of Navarre, in long duress <J 

By mandate of King John within the walls *^ 



THE JACQUERIE— A FRAGMENT 195 

Of Crivacoeur and then of strong All&res, 

In laithful ward of Sir Tristan du Bois, 

Was now escaped, had supped with Guy Kyrec, 

Had now a pardon of the Regent Duke 

By half compulsion of a Paris mob, 

Had turned the people's love upon himself 

By smooth harangues, and now was bold to claim 

That France was not the Kingdom of King John, 

But, By our Lady, his, by right and worth, 

And so was plotting treason in the State, 

And laughing at weak Charles of Normandy. 

Nay, these had been like good news to the King, 

Were any man but bold enough to tell 

The King what [bitter] sayings men had made 

And hawked augmenting up and down the land 

Against the barons and great lords of France 

That fled from English arrows at Poictiers. 

Poictiers, Poictiers : this grain i' the eye of Franct 

Had swelled it to a big and bloodshot ball 

That looked with rage upon a world askew. 

Poictiers' disgrace was now but two years old. 

Yet so outrageous rank and full was grown 

That France was wholly overspread with shade. 

And bitter fruits lay on the untilled ground 

That stank and bred so foul contagious smells 

That not a nose in France but stood awry, 

Nor boor that cried not faitgh ! upon the air. 

CHAPTER n. 

Franciscan friar John de Rochetaillade 

With gentle gesture lifted up his hand 

And poised it high above the steady eyes 

Of a great crowd that thronged the market-piact- 

In fair Clermont to hear him prophesy. 



196 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

Midst of the crowd old Gris Grillon, the maimed. 

— A wretched wreck that fate had floated out 

From the drear storm of battle at Poictiers. 

A living man whose larger moiety 

Was dead and buried on the battle-field — 

A grisly trunk, without or arms or legs, 

And scarred with hoof-cuts over cheek and brow, 

Lay in his wicker-cradle, smiling. 

*' Jacques," 
Quoth he, " My son, I would behold this priest 
That is not fat, and loves not wine, and fasts, 
And stills the folk with waving of his hand, 
And threats the knights and thunders at the Pope 
Make way for Gris, ye who are whole of limb I 
Set me on yonder ledge, that I may see." 
Forthwith a dozen horny hands reached out 
And lifted Gris Grillon upon the ledge, 
Whereon he lay and overlooked the crowd. 
And from the gray-grown hedges of his brows 
Shot forth a glance against the friar's eye 
That struck him like an arrow. 

Then the friar, 
With voice as low as if a maiden hummed 
Love-songs of Provence in a inild day-dream : 
" And when he broke the second seal, I heard 
The second beast say, Come and see. 

And then 
Went out another horse, and he was red. 
And unto him that sat thereon was given 
To take the peace of earth away, and set 
Men killing one another : and they gave 
To him a mighty sword." 

The friar paused 
And pointed round the circle of sad eyes. 
*• There is no face of man or woman here 



THE JACQUERIE — A FRAGMENT. 197 

But showeth print of the hard hoof of war. 
Ah, yonder leaneth limbless Gris Grillon. 
Friends, Gris Grillon is France. 

Good France ; my France, 
Wilt never walk on glory's hills again ? 
Wilt never work among thy vines again ? 
Art footless and art handless evermore ? 
— Thou felon, War, J do arraign thee now 
Of mayhem of the four main limbs of France ! 
Thou old red criminal, stand forth ; I charge 
— But O, I am too utter sorrowful 
To urge large accusation now. 

Nathless, 
My work to-day, is still more grievous. Hear! 
The stains that war hath wrought upon the land 
Show but as faint white flecks, if seen o' the side 
Of those blood-covered images that stalk 
Through yon cold chambers of the future, as 
The prophet-mood, now stealing on my soul. 
Reveals them, marching, marching, marching. See ! 
There go the kings of France, in piteous file. 
The deadly diamonds shining in their crowns 
Uo wound the foreheads of their Majesties 
And ghtter through a setting of blood-gouts 
As if they smiled to think how men are slain 
By the sharp facets of the gem of power. 
And how the kings of men are slaves of stones. 
But look ! The long procession of the kings 
Wavers and stops ; the world is full of noise, 
The ragged peoples storm the palaces, 
They rave, they laugh, they thirst, they lap the stream 
That trickles from the regal vestments down. 
And, lapping, smack their heated chaps for more, 
And ply their daggers for it, till the kings 
All die and lie in a crooked sprawl of death, 



198 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

Ungainly, foul, and stiff as any heap 
Of villeins rotting on a battle-field. 

'T is true, that when these things have come to pass 
Then never a king shall rule again in France, 
For every villein shall be king in France : 
And who hath lordship in him, whether born 
In hedge or silken bed, shall be a lord : 
And queens shall be as thick i' the land as wives. 
And all the maids shall maids of honor be : 
And high and low shall commune solemnly : 
And stars and stones shall have free interview. 
But woe is me, 'tis also piteous true 
That ere this gracious time shall visit France, 
Your graves, Beloved, shall be some centuries old. 
And so your children's, and their children's graves 
And many generations'. 

Ye, O ye 
Shall grieve, and ye shall grieve, and ye shall grieve. 
Your Life shall bend and o'er his shuttle toil, 
A weaver weaving at the loom of grief. 
Your Life shall sweat 'twixt anvil and hot forge, 
An armorer working at the sword of grief. 
Your Life shall moil i' the ground, and plant his seed.. 
A farmer foisoning a huge crop of grief. 
Your Life shall chaffer in the market-place, 
A merchant trading in the goods of grief. 
Your Life shall go to battle with his bow, 
A soldier fighting in defence of grief. 
By every rudder that divides the seas. 
Tall Grief shall stand, the helmsman of the ship. 
By every wain that jolts along the roads, 
Stout Grief shall walk, the driver of the team. 
Midst every herd of cattle on the hills. 
Dull Grief shall lie, the herdsman of the drove. 



THE JACQUERIE — A FRAGMENT. 199 

Oh Grief shall grind your bread and play your lutes 
And marry you and bury you. 

— How else ? 
Who 's here in France, can win her people's faith 
And stand in front and lead the people on ? 
Where is the Church ? 

The Church is far too fat. 
Not, mark, by robust swelling of the thews, 
But puffed and flabby large with gross increase 
Of wine-fat, plague-fat, dropsy-fat. 

O shame, 
Thou Pope that cheatest God at Avignon, 
Thou that shouldst be the Father of the world 
And Regent of it whilst our God is gone ; 
Thou that shouldst blaze with conferred majesty 
And smite old Lust-o'-the-Flesh so as by flame ; 
Thou that canst turn thy key and lock Grief up 
Or turn thy key and unlock Heaven's Gate, 
Thou that shouldst be the veritable hand 
That Christ down-stretcheth out of heaven yet 
To draw up him that fainteth to His heart, 
Thou that shouldst bear thy fruit, yet virgin live, 
As she that bore a man yet sinned not, 
Thou that shouldst challenge the most special eyes 
Of Heaven and Earth and Hell to mark thee, since 
Thou shouldst be Heaven's best captain. Earth's best friend, 
And Hell's best enemy — false Pope, false Pope, 
The world, thy child, is sick and like to die, 
But thou art dinner-drowsy and cannot come : 
And Life is sore beset and crieth help ! 
But thou brook'st not disturbance at thy wine : 
And France is wild for one to lead her souls ; 
But thou art huge and fat and laggest back 
Among the remnants of forsaken camps. 
Thou'rt not God's Pope, thou art the Devil's Pope. 



200 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

Thou art first Squire to that most puissant knight, 
Lord Satan, who thy faithful squireship long 
Hath watched and well shall guerdon. 

Ye sad souls, 
So faint with work ye love not, so thin-worn 
With miseries ye wrought not, so outraged 
By strokes of ill that pass th' ill-doers' heads 
And cleave the innocent, so desperate tired 
Of insult that doth day by day abuse 
The humblest dignity of humblest men, 
Ye cannot call toward the Church for help. 
The Church already is o'erworked with care 
Of its dyspeptic stomach. 

Ha, the Church 
Forgets about eternity. 

I had 
A vision of forgetfulness. 

O Dre^m 
Born of a dream, as yonder cloud is born 
Of water which is born of cloud ! 

I thought 
I saw the moonlight lying large and calm 
Upon the unthrobbing bosom of the earth, 
As a great diamond glittering on a shroud. 
A sense of breathlessness stilled all the world. 
Motion stood dreaming he was changed to Rest, 
And Life asleep did fancy he was Death. 
A quick small shadow spotted the white world ; 
Then instantly 'twas huge, and huger grew 
By instants till it did o'ergloom all space. 
I lifted up mine eyes — O thou just God ! 
I saw a spectre with a million heads 
Come frantic downward through the universe, 
And all the mouths of it were uttering cries. 
Wherein was a sharp agony, and yet 



THE JACQUERIE — A FRAGMENT. 20I 

The cries were much like laughs ; as if Pain laugned. 
Its myriad lips were blue, and sometimes they 
Closed fast and only moaned dim sounds that shaped 
Themselves to one word, Homeless, and the stars 
Did utter back the moan, and the great hills 
Did bellow it, and then the stars and hills 
Bandied the grief o' the ghost 'twixt heaven and ear*l». 
The spectre sank, and lay upon the air, 
And brooded, level, close upon the earth, 
With all the myriad heads just over me. 
I glanced in all the eyes and marked that some 
Did glitter with a flame of lunacy. 
And some were soft and false as feigning love, 
And some were blinking with hypocrisy. 
And some were overfilmed by sense, and some 
Blazed with ambition's wild, unsteady fire. 
And some were burnt i' the sockets black, and some 
Were dead as embers when the fire is out. 
A curious zone circled the Spectre's waist. 
Which seemed with strange device to symbol Time. 
It was a silver-gleaming thread of day 
Spiral about a jet-black band of night. 
This zone seemed ever to contract and all 
The frame with momentary spasms heaved 
In the strangling traction which did never cease. 
I cried unto the spectre, Time hath bound 
Thy body with the fibre of his hours. 
Then rose a multitude of mocking sounds, 
And some mouths spat at me and cried thoii fool, 
And some, thou liest, and some, he dreavis : and tlien 
Some hands uplifted certain bowls they bore 
To lips that writhed but drank with eagerness. 
And some played curious viols, shaped like hearts 
And stringed with loves, to light and ribald tunes, 
And other hands slit tliroals with knives. 



202 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

And others patted all the painted cheeks 
In reach, and others stole what others had 
Unseen, or boldly snatched at alien rights, 
And some o' the heads did vie in a foolish game 
Of which could hold itself the highest, and 
Of which one's neck was stiff the longest titne. 

And then the sea in silence wove a veil 
Of mist, and breathed it upward and about, \ 

And waved and wound it softly round the world, 
And meshed my dream i' the vague and endless folds, 
And a light wind arose and blew these off, | 

And I awoke. i 

The many heads are priests i 

That have forgot eternity : and Time ; 

Hath caught and bound them with a withe 
Into a fagot huge, to burn in hell. 
— Now if the priesthood put such shame upon 
Your cry for leadership, can better help 
Come out of knighthood ? 

Lo ! you smile, you boors? 
You villeins smile at knighthood ? 

Now, thou Franco 
That wert the mother of fair chivalry. 
Unclose thine eyes, unclose thine eyes, here, see, 
Here stand a herd of knaves that laugh to scorn 
Thy gentlemen 1 

O contumely hard, 

bitterness of last disgrace, O sting 

That stings the coward knights of lost Poictiers I 

1 would — " but now a murmur rose i' the crowd 
Of angry voices, and the friar leapt 

From where he stood to preach and pressed a path 
3ctwixt the mass that way the voices camC' 



THE JACQUERIE — A FRAGMENT. 20^ 



CHAPTER III. 

Lord Raoul was riding castleward from field. 

At left hand rode his lady and at right 

His fool whom he loved better ; and his bird, 

His fine ger-falcon best beloved of all, 

Sat hooded on his wrist and gently swayed 

To the undulating amble of the horse. 

Guest-knights and huntsmen and a noisy train 

Of loyal-stomached flatterers and their squires 

Clattered in retinue, and aped his pace, 

And timed their talk by his, and worked their eyes 

By intimation of his glance, with great 

And drilled precision. 

Then said the fool : 
" *Twas a brave flight, my lord, that last one ! brave 
Didst note the heron once did turn about, 
And show a certain anger with his wing, 
And make as if he almost dared, not quite, 
To strike the falcon, ere the falcon him? 
A foolish damnable advised bird, 
Yon heron ! What? Shall herons grapple hawks ? 
God made the herons for the hawks to strike, 
And hawk and heron made he for lords' sport." 
"What then, my honey-tongu&d Fool, that knowest 
God's purposes, what made he fools for ? " 

"For 
To counsel lords, my lord. Wilt hear me prove 
Fools' counsel better than wise men's advice ?" 
*'Aye, prove it. If thy logic fail, wise fool, 
I'll cause two wise men whip thee soundly." 

"So; 
IVise men arc prudent : prudent men have care 
Fir their own proper interest ; there/ore they 



204 UNRKVFSKI) KARLY POEMS. 

Advisfi their oivn atlvantaf^e , not another's. 

But fools are careless : careless men care not 

For their own proper interest j therefore they 

Advise their friencV s advan/aj^e, not their own. 

Now lu:ar the commentary, (Jousin Raoiil. 

This fool, unselfish, counsels thee, his lord, 

Go not through yonder square, where, as thou see'st 

Von herd of villeins, crick-necked all with strain 

Of gazing upward, stand, and gaze, and take 

With open mouth and eye and ear, the quips 

And liorcsies of John de Rochetaillade." 

Lord Raoul half turned him in his saddle round, 

And looked upon his fool and vouchsafed him 

What moiety of fastidious wonderment 

A generous nol>leness could deign to give 

To such humility, with eye superb 

Where languor and surprise both showed themselves. 

Each deprecating t'other. 

" Now, dear knave. 
Be kind and tell me — tell me quickly, too,^ 
Some proper reasonable ground or cause, 
Nay, tell me but some shadow of some cause, 
Nay, hint me but a thin ghost's dream of cause, 
(So will I tlicc absolve from being whipped) 
Why I, Lord Kaoul, should turn my horse aside 
From riding by yon pitiful villein gang. 
Or ay, by (Jod, from riding o'er their heads 
If so my humor serve, or through their bodies, 
Or miring fetlocks in their nasty brains. 
Or doing aught else I will in my Clermont? 
Do me this grace, mine Idiot." 

" Please thy Wisdom 
An thou dost ride through this same gang of boors, 
'Tis my fool's-proj)liecy, some ill shall fall. 
Lord Kaoul, yon mass of various flesh is fused 



TlIK JACQUKRIK — A 1'RA(;MKNT. 205 

And melted (|uitc in one by white-hot words 

The friar speaks. Sir, sawest thou ne'er, sometimes, 

Thine armorer spit on iron when 'twas hot, 

And how the iron flung the insult back, 

Ilissinj;? So this contempt now in thine eye. 

If it shall fall on yonder heated surface 

Mny bounce back upward. Well: and then ? What then' 

Why, if ihou cause thy folk to crop some villein's ears. 

So, evil falls, and a fool foretells the truth. 

Or if some erring crossbow-boll should break 

Thine unarmed head, shot from behind a house, 

So, evil fills, and a fool foretells the truth." 

" Well," quoth Lord Raoul, with languid utterancCf 

'• 'Tis very well— and thou 'rt a foolish fool. 

Nay, thou art Folly's perfect witless man, 

Stupidity doth madly dote on thee, 

And Idiocy doth fight her for thy love. 

Yet Silliness doth love thee best of all, 

And while they quarrel, snatcheth thee to her 

And saith Ah / 'lis my sweetest No-hrains : mine t 

— And 'tis my mood to-day some ill shall fall." 

And there right suddenly Lord Raoul gave rein 

And galloped straightway to the crowded square, 

— What time a strange light flickered in the eyes 

Of the calm fool, that was not folly's gleam, 

But more like wisdom's smile at plan well laid 

And end well compassed. In the noise of hoofs 

Secure, the fool Inw-muttered : " Folly's love/ 

So : Silliness' sweetheart : no-brains : quoth my Lord. 

Why, how intolerable an ass is he 

Whom Silliness' sweetheart drives so, by the ear! 

Thou languid, lordly, most heart-breaking Nought! 

Thou bastard zero, that hast come to power. 

Nothing's right issue failing ! Thou mere ' pooh' 

That Life hath uttered in some moment's pet. 



206 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

And then forgot she uttered thee ! Thou gap 
In time, thou little notch in circumstance ! " 



CHAPTER IV. 

Lord Raoul drew rein with all his company, 

And urged his horse i' the crowd, to gain fair view 

Of him that spoke, and stopped at last, and sat 

Still, underneath where Gris Grillon was laid. 

And heard, somewhile, with languid scornful gaze. 

The friar putting blame on priest and knight. '* 

But presently, as 'twere in weariness, 

He gazed about, and then above, and so i 

Made mark of Gris Grillon. ] 

" So, there, old man, 
Thou hast more brows than legs ! " J 

" I would," quoth Gris 
" That thou, upon a certain time I wot, 

Hadst had less legs and bigger brows, my Lord ! " j 

Then all the flatterers and their squires cried out s 

Solicitous, with various voice, " Go to, f 

Old Rogue," or " Shall I brain him, my good Lord ?** 
Or, " So, let me but chuck him from his perch," 
Or, "Slice his tongue to piece his leg withal," ' 

Or, ** Send his eyes to look for his missing arms." 
But my Lord Raoul was in the mood, to-day, 
Which craves suggestions simply with a view j 

To flout them in the face, and so waved hand ? 

Backward, and stayed the on-pressing sycophants f 

Eager to buy rich praise with bravery cheap. 
"I would know why," — he said — " thou wishedst me 
Less legs and bigger brows ; and when ? " 

" Wouldst know ? 
Learn then," cried Gris Grillon and stirred himself, 
In a great spasm of passion mixed with pain ; 



THE JACQUERIE — A FRAGMENT. 207 

" An thou hadst had more courage and less speed, 

Then, ah my God ! then could not I have been 

That piteous gibe of a man thou see 'st I am. 

Sir, having no disease, nor any taint 

Nor old hereditament of sin or shame, 

— But, feeling the brave bound and energy 

Of daring health that leaps along the veins — 

As a hart upon his river banks at morn, 

— Sir, wild with the urgings and hoi strenuous beats 

Of manhood's heart in this full-sinewed breast 

Which thou may'st even now discern is mine, 

— Sir, full aware, each instant in each day. 

Of motions of great muscles, once were mine. 

And thrill of tense thew-knots, and stinging sense 

Of nerves, nice, capable and delicate : 

— Sir, visited each hour by passions great 

That lack all instrument of utterance. 

Passion of love — that hath no arm to curve ; 

Passion of speed — that hath no limb to stretch ; 

Yea, even that poor feeling of desire 

Simply to turn me from this side to that, 

(Which brooded on, into wild passion grows 

By reason of the impotence that broods) 

Balked of its end and unachievable 

Without assistance of some foreign arm, 

— Sir, moved and thrilled like any perfect man, 

O, trebly moved and thrilled, since poor desires 

That are of small import to happy men 

Who easily can compass them, to me 

Become mere hopeless Heavens or actual Hells, 

— Sir, strengthened so with manhood's seasoned soul, 

1 lie in this damned cradle day and night, 

Still, still, so still, my Lord : less than a babe 

In powers but more than any man in needs ; 

Dreaming, with open eye, of days when men 



208 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

Have fallen cloven through steel and bone and flesh 

At single strokes of this— of that big arm 

Once wielded aught a mortal arm might wield, 

Waking a prey to any foolish gnat 

That wills to conquer my defenceless brow 

And sit thereon in triumph ; hounded ever 

By small necessities of barest use 

Which, since I cannot compass them alone. 

Do snarl my helplessness into mine ear, 

Howling behind me that I have no hands. 

And yelping round me that I have no feet : 

So that my heart is stretched by tiny ills 

That are so much the larger that I knew 

In bygone days how trifling small they were : 

— Dungeoned in wicker, strong as 'twere in stone ; 

— Fast chained with nothing, firmer than with steel; 

— Captive in limb, yet free in eye and ear, 

Sole tenant of this puny Hell in Heaven : 

— And this — all this— because I was a man ! 

For, in the battle — ha, thou know'st, pale-face! 

When that the four great English horsemen bore 

So bloodily on thee, I leapt to front 

To front of thee — of thee — and fought four blades, 

Thinking to win thee time to snatch thy breath, 

And, by a rearing fore-hoof stricken down. 

Mine eyes, through blood, my brain, through pain, 
— Midst of a dim hot uproar fainting down — 
Were 'ware of thee, far rearward, fleeing ! Hound I " 

CHAPTER V. 

Then, as the passion of old Gris Grillon 
A wave swift swelling, grew to highest height 
And snapped a foaming consummation forth 
With salty hissing, came the friar through 



THE JACQUERIE -A FRAGMENT. 20^ 

The mass. A stillness of white faces wrought 
A transient death on all the hands and breasts 
Of all the crowd, and men and women stood, 
One instant, fixed, as they had died upright. 
Then suddenly Lord Raoul rose up in selle 
And thrust his dagger straight upon the breast 
Of Gris Grillon, to pin him to the wall ; 
But ere steel-point met flesh, tall Jacques Grillon 
Had leapt straight upward from the earth, and in 
The self-same act had whirled his bow by end 
With mighty whirr about his head, and struck 
The dagger with so featly stroke and full 
That blade flew up and hilt flew down, and left 
Lord Raoul unfriended of his weapon. 

Then 
The fool cried shrilly, " Shall a knight of France 
Go stabbing his own cattle ? " And Lord Raoul, 
Calm with a changing mood, sat still and called : 
" Here, huntsmen, 'tis my will ye seize the hind 
That broke my dagger, bind him to this tree 
And slice both ears to hair-breadth of his head, 
To be his bloody token of regret 
That he hath put them to so foul em.ploy 
As catching villainous breath of strolling priests 
That mouth at knighthood and defile the Church." 
The knife ..... [Rest of line lost] 

To place the edge .... [Rest of line lost- 
Mary ! the blood ! it oozes sluggishly, 
Scorning to come at call of blade so base. 
Sathanas ! He that cuts the ear has left 
The blade sticking at midway, for to turn 

And ask the Duke " if 'tis not done 
Thus far with nice precision," and the Duke 
Leans down to see, and cries, "'tis marvellous nice* 
Bhaved as then wert ear-barber by profession I " 



2IO UNREVISED EARLY POEMS, 

Whereat one witling cries, " 'tis monstrous fit, 

In sooth, a shaven-pated priest should have 

A shaven-eared audience ; " and another, 

"Give thanks, thou Jacques, to this most gracious Duke 

That rids thee of the life-long dread of loss 

Of thy two ears, by cropping them at once ; 

And now henceforth full safely thou may 'st dare 

The powerfullest Lord in France to touch 

An ear of thine ; " and now the knave o' the knife 

Seizes the handle to commence again, and saws 

And . . ha ! Lift up thine head, O Henry ! Friend I 

'Tis Marie, walking midway of the street. 

As she had just stepped forth from out the gate 

Of the very, very Heaven where God is, 

Still glittering with the God-shine on her ! Look t 

And there right suddenly the fool looked up 

And saw the crowd divided in two ranks. 

Raoul pale-stricken as a man that waits 

God's first remark when he hath died into 

God's sudden presence, saw the cropping knave 

A-pause with knife in hand, the wondering folk 

All straining forward with round-ringed eyes, 

And Gris Grillon calm smiling while he prayed 

The Holy Virgin's blessing. 

Down the lane 
Betwixt the hedging bodies of the crowd, 
rPart of line lost.] .... majesty 
I Part of line lost.] . . a spirit pacing on the top 
Of springy clouds, and bore straight on toward 
The Duke. On him her eyes burned steadily 
With such gray fires of heaven-hot command 
As Dawn burns Night away with, and she held 
Her white forefinger quivering aloft 
At greatest arm's-length of her dainty arm, 
In menace sweeter than a kiss could be 



THE JACQUERIE— A FRAGMENT. 21 1 

And terribler than sudden whispers are 

That come from lips unseen, in sunHt room. 

So with the spell of all the Powers of Sense 

That e'er have swayed the savagery of hot blood 

Raying from her whole body beautiful, 

She held the eyes and wills of all the crowd. 

Then from the numbM hand of him that cut, 

The knife dropped down, and the quick fool stole in 

And snatched and deftly severed all the withes 

Unseen, and Jacques burst forth into the crowd, 

And then the mass completed the long breath 

They had forgot to draw, and surged upon 

The centre where the maiden stood with sound 

Of multitudes of blessings, and Lord Raoul 

Rode homeward, silent and most pale and strange, 

Deep-wrapt in moody fits of hot and cold. 

(End of Chapter V.) 

• • • • • « 

Macon, Georgia, i86& 



212 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



» 

* 

i 
SONG FOR "THE JACQUERIE' ' 

May the maiden, ;' 

Violet-laden 
Out of the violet sea, 

Comes and hovers 

Over lovers, 
Over thee, Marie, and me. 

Over me and thee. 

Day the stately. 

Sunken lately 
Into the violet sea. 

Backward hovers 

Over lovers. 
Over thee, Marie, and me, 

Over me and thee 

Night the holy. 

Sailing slowly 
Over the violet sea, 

Stars uncovers 

Over lovers, 
Stars for thee, Marie, and me. 

Stars for me and thee. 



Vf ACON, Gborgia, i863. 



BETRAYAL. 2M 



SONG FOR " THE JACQUERIE." 

BETRAYAL. 

The sun has kissed the violet sea, 

And burned the violet to a rose. 

O Sea ! wouldst thou not better be 

Mere violet still ? Who knows ? who knows ? 
Well hides the violet in the wood : 
The dead leaf wrinkles her a hood, 
And winter's ill is violet's good ; 
But the bold glory of the rose. 
It quickly comes and quickly goes— ^ 
Red petals whirling in white snows. 
Ah me ! 

The sun has burnt the rose-red sea : 

The rose is turned to ashes gray. 
O Sea, O Sea, mightst thou but be 
The violet thou hast been to-day ! 

The sun is brave, the sun is bright. 
The sun is lord of love and light ; 
But after him it cometh night. 
Dim anguish of the lonesome dark !— 
Once a girl's body, stiff and stark. 
Was laid in a tomb without a mark. 
Ah me I 

Macon, Georgia, 1868. 



214 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



SONG FOR "THE JACQUERIE." 

The hound was cuffed, the hound was kicked, 
O' the ears was cropped, o' the tail was nickedj 
\All.) Oo-hoo-o, howled the hound. 

The hound into his kennel crept ; 
He rarely wept, he never slept. 
His mouth he always open kept 
Licking his bitter wound, 
The hound, 
(A//.) U-lu-lo, howled the hound. 

A star upon his kennel shone 
That showed the hound a meat-bare bone. 
(All.) O hungry was the hound ! 

The hound had but a churlish wit. 
He seized the bone, he crunched, he bit. 
*' An thou wert Master, I had slit 

Thy throat with a huge wound," 
Quo' hound. 
(All.) O, angry was the hound. 

The star in castle-window shone. 
The Master lay abed, alone. 
{All.) Oh ho, why not ? quo' hound. 

He leapt, he seized the throat, he tore 
The Master, head from neck, to floor. 
And rolled the head i' the kennel door. 
And fled and salved his wound, 
Good hound ! 
(All.) \J -\vi-\o, howled the hound. 

Macon, Georgia, 1868. 



THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 21 5 



THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF 
STERLING AND SARAH LANIER, 

September 27, 1868. 

BY THE ELDEST GRANDSON. 

A RAINBOW span of fifty years, 

Painted upon a cloud of tears, 

In blue for hopes and red for fears. 

Finds end in a golden hour to-day. 
PCa., you to our childhood the legend told, 
" At the end of the rainbow lies the gold," 
And now in our thrilling hearts we hold 
The gold that never will pass away. 

Gold crushed from the quartz of a crystal life, 
Gold hammered with blows of human strife, 
Gold burnt in the love of man and wife. 

Till it is pure as the very flame : 
Gold that the miser will not have, 
Gold that is good beyond the grave, 
Gold that the patient and the brave 

Amass, neglecting praise and blame. 

O golden hour that caps the time 

Since, heart to heart like rhyme to rhyme, 

You stood and listened to the chime 

Of inner bells by spirits rung, 
That tinkled many a secret sweet 
Concerning how two souls should meet. 
And whispered of Time's flying feet 

With a most piquant silver tongue. 



2l6 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

O golden day, — a golden crown 

For the kingly heads that bowed not down 

To win a smile or 'scape a frown, 

Except the smile and frown of Heaven! 
Dear heads, still dark with raven hair ; 
Dear hearts, still white in spite of care ; 
Dear eyes, still black and bright and fair 

As any eyes to mortals given ! 

Old parents of a restless race, 
You miss full many a bonny face 
That would have smiled a filial grace 

Around your Golden Wedding wine. 
But God is good and God is great. 
His will be done, if soon or late. 
Your dead stand happy in yon Gate 

And call you blessed while they shine. 

So, drop the tear and dry the eyes. 
Your rainbow glitters in the skies. 
Here's golden wine : young, old, arise : 

With cups as full as our souls, we say : 
" Two Hearts, that wrought with smiles through tears 
This rainbow span of fifty years. 
Behold how true, true love appears 

True gold for your Golden Wedding day I " 

Macon, Gborgia, September, 1868. 



I 



STRANGE JOKES. 217 



STRANGE JOKES. 

Well : Death is a huge omnivorous Toad 
Grim squatting on a twihght road. 
He catcheth all that Circumstance 

Hath tossed to him. 
He curseth all who upward glance 

As lost to him. 

Once in a whimsey mood he sat 
And talked of life, in proverbs pat, 
To Eve in Eden,—" Death, on Life"— 

As if he knew ! 
And so he toadied Adam's wife 

There, in the dew. 

O dainty dew, O morning dew 

That gleamed in the world's first dawn, did you 

And the sweet grass and manful oaks 

Give lair and rest 
To him who toadwise sits and croaks 

His death-behest ? 

Who fears the hungry Toad ? Not 1 1 

He but unfetters me to fly. 

The German still, when one is dead. 

Cries out " Der Tod ! " 
But, pilgrims, Christ will walk ahead 

And clear the road. 

Macon, Georgia, July, 1867. 



21 8 UNRE VISED EARLY POEMS. 



NIRVANA. 

Through seas of dreams and seas of phantasies^ 
Through seas of solitudes and vacancies, 
And through my Self, the deepest of the seas, 
I strive to thee, Nirvana. 

Oh long ago the billow-flow of sense, 
Aroused by passion's windy vehemence, 
Upbore me out of depths to heights intense, 
But not to thee, Nirvana. 

By waves swept on, I learned to ride the waves. 
I served my masters till I made them slaves. 
I baffled Death by hiding in his graves, 
His watery graves, Nirvana. 

And once I clomb a mountain's stony crown 
And stood, and smiled no smile and frowned no frowQ 
Nor ate, nor drank, nor slept, nor faltered down, 
Five days and nights, Nirvana. 

Sunrise and noon and sunset and strange night 
And shadow of large clouds and faint starlight 
And lonesome Terror stalking round the height, 
I minded not. Nirvana. 

The silence ground my soul keen like a spear. 
My bare thought, whetted as a sword, cut sheer 
Through time and life and flesh and death, to clear 

My way unto Nirvana, 



NIRVANA. 219 

I slew gross bodies of old ethnic hates 
That stirred long race -wars betwixt States and Sftes. 
I stood and scorned these foolish dead debates, 
Calmly, calmly, Nirvana. 

I smote away the filmy base of Caste. 
I thrust through antique blood and riches vast, 
And all big claims of the pretentious Past 
That hindered my Nirvana. 

Then all fair types, of form and sound and hue, 
Up-floated round my sense and charmed anew, 
— I waved them back into the void blue : 
I love them not. Nirvana. 

And all outrageous ugliness of time, 
Excess and Blasphemy and squinting Crime 
Beset me, but I kept my calm sublime : 
I hate them not, Nirvana. 

High on the topmost thrilling of the surge 
I saw, afar, two hosts to battle urge. 
The widows of the victors sang a dirge. 
But I wept not, Nirvana. 

I saw two lovers sitting on a star. 
He kissed her lip, she kissed his battle-scar. 
They quarrelled soon, and went two ways, afat 
O Life ! I laughed. Nirvana. 

And never a king but had some king above, 
And never a law to right the wrongs of Love, 
And ever a fanged snake beneath a dove, 
Saw I on earth, Nirvina. 



!20 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

But I, with kingship over kings, am free. 
I love not, hate not : right and wrong agree t 
And fangs of snakes and lures of doves to me 
Are vain, are vain, Nirvana- 

So by mine inner contemplation long, 
By thoughts that need no speech nor oath nor song, 
My spirit soars above the motley throng 
Of days and nights. Nirvana. 

O Suns, O Rains, O Day and Night, O Chance, 

Time besprent with seven-hued circumstance, 

1 float above ye all into the trance 

That draws me nigh Nirvana, 

Gods of small worlds, ye little Deities 
Of humble Heavens under my large skies. 
And Governor-Spirits, all, I rise, I rise, 
I rise into Nirvana. 

The storms of Self below me rage and die. 
On the still bosom of mine ecstasy, 
A lotus on a lake of balm, I lie 
Forever in Nirvins. 

Macon, Gborgia, 1869. 



tHE RAVEN DAYS. '2l 



THE RAVEN DAYS.i 

Our hearths are gone out a'ul our liearts are broken, 
And but the ghosts of homes to us remain, 

And ghastly eyes and hollow sighs give token 
From friend to friend of an unspoken pain. 

O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow, 
Bring to us in your whetted ivory beaks 

Some sign out of the far land of To-morrow, 

Some strip of sea-green dawn, some orange streaks. 

Ye float in dusky files, forever croaking. 

Ye chill our manhood with your dreary shade. 
Dumb in the dark, not even God invoking, 

We lie in chains, too weak to be afraid. 

O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow, 
Will ever any warm light come again ? 

Will ever the lit mountains of To-morrow 
Begin to gleam athwart the mournful plain ? 

Prattville, Alabama, February, 1868. 



^ The two poems which follow "The Raven Days" have not been 
included in earlier editions. All three are calls from those des- 
perate years for the South just after the Civil War. The reader 
of to-day, seeing that forlorn period in the just perspective t)f half 
a century, will not wonder at the tone of anguished remonstrance; 
but, rather, that so few notes of mourning have come from a poet 
who missed nothing of what the days of Reconstruction brought to 
his people. 



222 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



OUR HILLS. 

Dear Mother-Earth 

Of Titan birth, 
Yon hills are your large breasts, and often I 
Have climbed to their top-nipples, fain and dry 
To drink my mother's-milk so near the sky. 

O ye hill-stains, 

Red, for all rains ! 
The blood that made you has all bled for us, 
The hearts that paid you are all dead for us. 
The trees that shade you groan with lead, for us ! 

And O, hill-sides. 

Like giants' brides 
Ye sleep in ravine-rumpled draperies. 
And weep your springs in tearful memories 
Of days that stained your robes with stains like these ! 

Sleep on, ye hills ! 

Weep on, ye rills ! 
The stainers have decreed the stains shall stay. 
They chain the hands might wash the stains away. 
They wait with cold hearts till we "rue the day." 

O Mother-Earth 

Of Titan birth. 
Thy mother's-milk is curdled with aloe. 
— Like hills, Men, lift calm heads through any woe, 
And weep, but bow not an inch, for any foe ! 

Thou Sorrow-height 

We climb by night. 
Thou hast no hell-deep chasm save Disgrace. 
To stoop, will fling us down its fouled space: 
Stand proud ! The Dawn will meet us, face to face, 
For down steep hills the Dawn loves best to race ! 



LAUGHTER IN THE SENATE. 223 



LAUGHTER IN THE SENATE. 

In the South lies a lonesome, hungry Land; 
He huddles his rags with a cripple's hand; 
He mutters, prone on the barren sand, 

What time his heart is breaking. 

He lifts his bare head from the ground; 
He listens through the gloom around: 
The winds have brought him a strange sound 
Of distant merrymaking. 

Comes now the Peace so long delayed? 
Is it the cheerful voice of Aid? 
Begins the time his heart has prayed, 

When men may reap and sow? 

Ah, God ! Back to the cold earth's breast ! 
The sages chuckle o'er their jest; 
Must they, to give a people rest, 
Their dainty wit forego? 

The tyrants sit in a stately hall; 
They jibe at a wretched people's fall; 
The tyrants forget how fresh is the pall 
Over their dead and ours. 

Look how the senators ape the clown, 
And don the motley and hide the gown, 
But yonder a fast-rising frown 

On the people's forehead lowers. 
1868. 



124 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



BABY CHARLEY. 

He 's fast asleep. See how, O Wife, 
Night's finger on the Hp of life 
Bids whist the tongue, so prattle-rife, 
Of busy Baby Charley. 

One arm stretched backward round his head, 
Five little toes from out the bed 
Just showing, like five rosebuds red, 
— So slumbers Baby Charley. 

Heaven-lights, I know, are beaming through 
Those lucent eyelids, veined with blue, 
That shut away from mortal view 
Large eyes of Baby Charley. 

sweet Sleep-Angel, throned now 
On the round glory of his brow, 
Wave thy wing and waft my vow 

Breathed over Baby Charley. 

1 vow that my heart, when death is nigh. 
Shall never shiver with a sigh 

For act of hand or tongue or eye 

That wronged my Baby Charley ! 

Macon, Georgia, December, 1869. 



A SEA- SHORE GRAVE. 2 2=1 



A SEA-SHORE GRAVE. 
To M. J. L. 

BY SIDNEY AND CLIFFORD LANIER. 

O \VISH that 's vainer than the plash 
Of these wave-whimsies on the shore : 
*' Give us a pearl to fill the gash — 

God, let our dead friend live once more ! " 

O wish that 's stronger than the stroke 

Of yelling wave and snapping levin ; 

*' God, lift us o'er the Last Day's smoke, 

All white, to Thee and her in Heaven I" 

O wish that 's swifter than the race 
Of wave and wind in sea and sky ; 

Let's take the grave-cloth from her face 
And fall in the grave, and kiss, and die ! 

Look! High above a glittering calm 
Of sea and sky and kingly sun, 

She shines and smiles, and waves a palm — 
And now we wish — Thy will be done I 

Montgomery, Alabama, 1866. 



220 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



SOULS AND RAIN-DROPS. 

Light rain-drops fall and wrinkle the sea. 
Then vanish, and die utterly. 
One would not know that rain-drops fell 
If the round sea-wrinkles did not tell. 

So souls come down and wrinkle life 
And vanish in the flesh-sea strife. 
One might not know that souls had place 
Were 't not for the wrinkles in life's face. 



NILSSON. 227 



NILSSON. 

A ROSE of perfect red, embossed 
With silver sheens of crystal frost, 
Yet warm, nor life nor fragrance lost. 

High passion throbbing in a sphere 
That Art hath wrought of diamond clear, 
— A great heart beating in a tear. 

The listening soul is full of dreams 
That shape the wondrous-varying themes 
As cries of men or plash of streams. 

Or noise of summer rain-drops round 
That patter daintily a-ground 
With hints of heaven in the sound. 

Or noble wind- tones chanting free 
Through morning-skies across the sea 
Wild hymns to some strange majesty. 

O, if one trope, clear-cut and keen, 
May type the art of Song's best queen, 
White-hot of soul, white-chaste of mien.. 

On Music's heart doth rvilsson dwell 
As if a Swedish snow-flake fell 
Into a glowi'o^ *Vower-bell. 

New York, 1871. 



228 UNREVISED EARLY FOEMS. 



NIGHT AND DAY. 

The innocent, sweet Day is dead. 
Dark Night hath shiin her in her bed. 
O, Moors are as fierce to kill as to wed ! 
— Put out the light, said he. 

A sweeter light than ever rayed 
From star of heaven or eye of maid 
Has vanished in the unknown Shade 
— She 's dead, she 's dead, said he 

Now, in a wild, sad after-mood 
The tawny Night sits still to brood 
Upon the dawn-time when he wooed 
— I would she lived, said he. 

Star-memories of happier times, 
Ofloving deeds and lovers' rhymes, 
Throng forth in silvery pantomimes. 
— Come back, O Day ! said he. 

Montgomery, Alabama, 1866. 



A BIRTHDAY SONG. 229 



A BIRTHDAY SONG. 

To S. G. 

For ever wave, for ever float and shine 
Before my yearning eyes, oh ! dream of mine 
Wherem I dreamed that time was like a vine, 

A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread 
Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead, 
Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o'erhead. 

This vine bore many blossoms, which were years. 
Their petals, red with joy, or bleached by tears. 
Waved to and fro i' the winds of hopes and fears. 

Here all men clung, each hanging by his spray. 
Anon, one dropped ; his neighbor 'gan to pray ; 
And so they clung and dropped and prayed, alway. 

But I did mark one lately-opened bloom, 

Wherefrom arose a visible perfume 

That wrapped me in a cloud of dainty gloom. 

And rose — an odor by a spirit haunted — 
And drew me upward with a speed enchanted, 
Swift floating, by wild sea or sky undaunted, 

Straight through the cloud of death, where men are free. 
I gained a height, and stayed and bent my knee. 
Then glowed my cloud, and broke and unveiled thee. 



230 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

" O flower-born and flower-souled ! " I said, 
" Be the year-bloom that breathed thee ever red, 
Nor wither, yellow, down among the dead. 

" May all that cling to sprays of time, like me, 
Be sweetly wafted over sky and sea 
By rose-breaths shrining maidens like to thee ! " 

Then while we sat upon the height afar 
Came twilight, like a lover late from war. 
With soft winds fluting to his evening star. 

And the shy stars grew bold and scattered gold- 
And chanting voices ancient secrets told, 
And an acclaim of angels earthward rolled. 

Montgomery, Alabama, October, 1866. 



RESURRECTION. 23 1 



RESURRECTION. 

Sometimes in morning sunlights by the river 
Where in the early fall long grasses wave, 

Light winds from over the moorland sink and shiver 
And sigh as if just blown across a grave. 

And then I pause and listen to this sighing. 

I look with strange eyes on the well-known stream. 
I hear wild birth-cries uttered by the dying. 

I know men waking who appear to dream. 

Then from the water-lilies slow uprises 

The still vast face of all the life I know, 
Changed now, and full of wonders and surprises, 

With fire in eyes that once were glazed with snow. 

Fair now the brows old Pain had erewhile wrinkled, 
And peace and strength about the calm mouth dwell. 

Clean of the ashes that Repentance sprinkled, 
The meek head poises like a flower-bell. 

All the old scars of wanton wars are vanished ; 

And what blue bruises grappling Sense had left 
And sad remains of redder stains are banished, 

And the dim blotch of heart-committed theft. 

O still vast vision of transfigured features 

Unvisited by secret crimes or dooms. 
Remain, remain amid these water-creatures. 

Stand, shine among yon water-lily blooms. 

For eighteen centuries ripple down the river, 
And windy times the stalks of empires wave, 

— Let the winds come from the moor and sigh and shiver, 
Fain, fain am I, O Christ, to pass the grave. 



232 UNREVISED KARLY POEMS. 



TO 



The Day was dying ; his breath 
Wavered away in a hectic gleam ; 
And I said, if Life 's a dream, and Death 
And Love and all are dreams — I '11 dream. 

A mist came over the bay 
Like as a dream would over an eye. 
The mist was white and the dream was grey 
And both contained a human cry, 

The burthen whereof was " Love," 
And it filled both mist and dream with pain, 
And the hills below and the skies above 
Were touched and uttered it back again. 

The mist broke : down the rift 
A kind ray shot from a holy star. 
Then qiy dream did waver and break and lift- 
Through it, O Love, shone thy face, afar. 

So Boyhood sets : comes Youth, 
A painful night of mists and dreams ; 
That broods till Love's exquisite truth, 
The star of a morn-clear manhood, beams. 

Boykin's Bluff, Virginia, i86.^. 



THE WEDDING.' 



THE WEDDING. 

O MARRIAGE-BELLS, your clamor tells 

Two weddings in one breath. 
She marries whom her love compels : 

— And I wed Goodman Death ! 
My brain is blank, my tears are red ; 
Listen, O God :— " I will," he said :— 
And I would that I were dead. 
Come groomsman Grief and bridesmaid Pain 
Come and stand with a ghastly twain. 
My Bridegroom Death is come o'er the meree 
To wed a bride with bloody tears. 
Ring, ring, O bells, full merrily : 
Life-bells to her, death-bells to me : 
O Death, I am true wife to thee I 

Macon, Georgia, 1865, 



-34 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



THE PALM AND THE PINE. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE. 

In the far North stands a Pine-tree, lone. 

Upon a wintry height ; 
It sleeps : around it snows have thrown 

A covering of white. 

It dreams forever of a Palm 
That, far i' the Morning-land, 

Stands silent in a most sad calm 
Midst of the burning sand. 

Point Lookout Prison, 1864. 



SPRING GREETING. 235 



SPRING GREETING. 

FROM THE GERMAN OF HERDER. 

All faintly through my soul to-day, 
As from a bell that far away 
Is tinkled by some frolic lay, 

Floateth a lovely chiming. 
Thou magic bell, to many a fell 
And many a winter-saddened dell 
Thy tongue a tale of Spring doth tell, 

Too passionate-sweet for rhyming. 

Chime out, thou little song of Spring, 
Float in the blue skies ravishing. 
Thy song-of-life a joy doth bring 

That 's sweet, albeit fleeting. 
Float on the Spring-winds e'en to my home 
And when thou to a rose shalt come 
That hath begun to show her bloom, 

Say, I send her greeting! 

Point Lookout Prison, 1864. 



236 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



THE TOURNAMENT. 

Joust First. 



Bright shone the lists, blue bent the skies^ 
And the knights still hurried amain 

To the tournament under the ladies' eyes, 
Where the jousters were Heart and Brain. 



Flourished the trumpets : entered Heart, 

A youth in crimson and gold. 
Flourished again : Brain stood apart, 

Steel-armored, dark and cold. 

III. 

Heart's palfrey caracoled gayly round, 

Heart tra-Ii-ra'd merrily ; 
But Brain sat still, with never a sound. 

So cynical-calm was he. 

IV. 

Heart's helmet-crest bore favors three 
From his lady's white hand caught ; 

While Brain wore a plumeless casque ; not he 
Or favor gave or sought. 



THE TOURNAMENT. 237 



V. 



The herald blew ; Heart shot a glance 

To find his lady's eye, 
But Brain gazed straight ahead his lance 

To aim more faithfully. 

VI. 

They charged, they struck ; both fell, both bled. 

Brain rose again, ungloved. 
Heart, dying, smiled and faintly said, 

" My love to my beloved ! " 

Camp French, Wilmington, N. C, 
May, 1862. 



Joust Second. 

I. 

A-many sweet eyes wept and wept, 

A-many bosoms heaved again ; 
A-many dainty dead hopes slept 

With yonder Heart-knight prone o' the plain. 

,11. 

Yet stars will burn through any mists. 

And the ladies' eyes, through rains of fate, 

Still beamed upon the bloody lists 
And lit the joust of Love and Hate. 

III. 

O strange ! or ere a trumpet blew, 
Or ere a challenge-word was given, 

A knight leapt down i' the lists ; none knew 
Whether he sprang from earth or heaven. 



238 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



IV. 



His cheek was soft as a lily-bud, 

His grey eyes calmed his youth's alarm ; 
Nor helm nor hauberk nor even a hood 

Had he to shield his life from harm. 



V. 

No falchion from his baldric swung, 

He wore a white rose in its place. 
No dagger at his girdle hung, 

But only an olive-branch, for grace. 

VI. 

And " Come, thou poor mistaken knight," 
Cried Love, unarmed, yet dauntless there, 
'* Come on, God pity thee ! — I fight 

Sans sword, sans shield ; yet, Hate, beware ! " 



VII. 

Spurred furious Hate ; he foamed at mouth, 
His breath was hot upon the air, 

His breath scorched souls, as a dry drought 
Withers green trees and burns them bare. 



VIII. 

Straight drives he at his enemy, 

His hairy hands grip lance in rest, 
His lance it gleams full bitterly, 

God ! — gleams, true-point, on Love's bare breast I 



I 



THE TOURNAMENT. 239 



IX. 



Love's grey eyes glow with a heaven-heat, 
Love lifts his hand in a saintly prayer ; 

Look ! Hate hath fallen at his feet ! 
Look ! Hate hath vanished in the air I 



Then all the throng looked kind on all ; 

Eyes yearned, lips kissed, dumb souls were freed ; 
Two magic maids' hands lifted a pall 

And the dead knight, Heart, sprang on his steed. 

XI. 

Then Love cried, ** Break me his lance, each knight ! 

Ye shall fight for blood-athirst Fame no more ! " 
And the knights all doffed their mailed might 

And dealt out dole on dole to the poor. 

XII. 

Then dove-flights sanctified the plain, 
And hawk and sparrow shared a nest 

And the great sea opened and swallowed Pain, 
And out of this water-grave floated Rest I 

Macon, Gbokgia, 1865. 



240 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



THE DYING WORDS OF STONEWALL 
JACKSON. 

" Order A. P. Hill to prepare for battle. " 

" Tell Major Hawks to advance the Commissary train-" 

" Let us cross the river and rest in the shade." 



The stars of Night contain the glittering Day 
And rain his glory down with sweeter grace 
Upon the dark World's grand, enchanted face- 
All loth to turn away. 

And so the Day, about to yield his breath. 
Utters the stars unto the listening Night, 
To stand for burning fare-thee-wells of light 
Said on the verge of death. 

O hero-life that lit us like the sun ! 
O hero-vi^ords that glittered like the stars 
And stood and shone above the gloomy wars 
When the hero-life was done I 

The phantoms of a battle came to dwell 
I' the fitful vision of his dying eyes — 
Yet even in battle-dreams, he sends supplies 
To those he loved so well. 



r 



^ 



DYING WORDS OF STONEWALL JACKSON. 241 

His army stands in battle-line arrayed : 
His couriers fly : all 's done : now God decide I 
— And not till then saw he the Other Side 
Or would accept the shade. 

Thou Land whose sun is gone, thy stars remain I 
Still shine the words that miniature his deeds. 
O thrice-beloved, where'er thy great heart bleeds, 
Solace hast thou for pain I 

Georgia, September, 1865. 



242 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



TO WILHELMINA. 

A WHITE face, drooping, on a bending neck : 
A tube-rose that with heavy petal curves 
Her stem : a foam-bell on a wave that swerves 

Back from the undulating vessel's deck. 

From out the whitest cloud of summer steals 
The wildest lightning : from this face of thine 
Thy soul, a fire-of-heaven, warm and fine, 

In marvellous flashes its fair self reveals. 

As when one gazes from the summer sea 

On some far gossamer cloud, with straining eye, 
Fearing to see it vanish in the sky, 

So, floating, wandering Cloud-Soul, I watch thee. 

Montgomery, Alabama, 1866. 



WEDDING-HYMN. 243 



WEDDING-HYMN. 

Thou God, whose high, eternal Love 
Is the only blue sky of our life, 

Clear all the Heaven that bends above 
The life-road of this man and wife. 

May these two lives be but one note 

In the world's strange-sounding harmony. 

Whose sacred music e'er shall float 
Through every discord up to Thee. 

As when from separate stars two beams 
Unite to form one tender ray : 

As when two sweet but shadowy dreams 
Explain each other in the day : 

So may these two dear hearts one light 
Emit, and each interpret each. 
et an angel come and dwell to-night 
In this dear double-heart, and teach > 

Macon, Georgia, September, 1865. 



244 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



IN THE FOAM. 

Life swelleth in a whitening wave, 
And dasheth thee and me apart. 
I sweep out seaward : — be thou brave. 
And reach the shore, Sweetheart. 

Beat back the backward-thrusting sea. 
Thy weak white arm his blows may thwart, 
Christ buffet the wild surge for thee 
Till thou'rt ashore. Sweetheart. 

Ah, now thy face grows dim apace. 
And seems of yon white foam a part. 
Canst hear me through the water-bass, 
Cry : "To the Shore, Sweetheart ? ** 

Now Christ thee soothe upon the Shore, 
My lissome-armed sea-Britomart. 
I sweep out seaward, never more 
To find the Shore, Sweetheart 

Prattvillb, Alabama, December, 1867. 



BARNACLES. 245 



BARNACLES. 

My soul is sailing through the sea, 
But the Past is heavy and hindereth me. 
The Past hath crusted cumbrous shells 
That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells 

About my soul. 
The huge waves wash, the high waves roll. 
Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole 

And hindereth me from sailing ! 

Old Past let go, and drop i' the sea 
Till fathomless waters cover thee ! 
For I am living but thou art dead ; 
Thou drawest back, I strive ahead 

The Day to find. 
Thy shells unbind ! Night comes behind, 
I needs must hurry with the wind 

And trim me best for sailing. 



Macon, Georgia, 1867. 



246 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 



NIGHT. 

Fair is the wedded reign of Night and Day. 
Each rules a half of earth with dififerent sway, 
Exchanging kingdoms, East and West, alway. 

Like the round pearl that Egypt drunk in wine, 
The sun half sinks i' the brimming, rosy brine : 
The wild Night drinks all up : how her eyes shine ! 

Now the swift sail of straining life is furled. 
And through the stillness of my soul is whirled 
The throbbing of the hearts of half the world. 

I hear the cries that follow Birth and Death. 
I hear huge Pestilence draw his vaporous breath : 
** Beware, prepare, or else ye die," he saith. 

I hear a haggard student turn and sigh : 

I hear men begging Heaven to let them die : 

And, drowning all, a wild-eyed woman's cry. 

So Night takes toll of Wisdom as of Sin. 

The student's and the drunkard's cheek is thin : 

But flesh is not the prize we strive to win. 

Now airy swarms of fluttering dreams descend 
On souls, like birds on trees, and have no end. 
O God, from vulture-dreams my soul defend ! 

Let fall on Her a rose-leaf rain of dreams. 

All passionate-sweet, as are the loving beams 

Of starlight on the glimmering woods and streams. 

Montgomery, Alabama, April, 1866. 



lUNE DREAMS, IN JANUARY. 247 



JUNE DREAMS, IN JANUARY. 

" So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon 
That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills, 
In languid palpitation, half a-swoon 

With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills ; 

** Throb, Beautiful ! while the fervent hours exhale 
As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips 
Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale 
And then as red as any virgin's lips. 

*' O tender Darkness, when June-day hath ceased, 

— Faint Odor from the day-flower's crushing born, 
■ — Dim, visible Sigh out of the mournful East 
That cannot see her lord again till morn : 

*' And many leaves, broad-palm&d towards the sky 
To catch the sacred raining of star-light : 
And pallid petals, fain, all fain to die, 

Soul-stung by too keen passion of the night : 

** And short-breath'd winds, under yon gracious moon 
Doing mild errands for mild violets. 
Or carrying sighs from the red lips of June 
What aimless way the odor-current sets : 

" And stars, ringed glittering in whorls and bells. 
Or bent along the sky in looped star-sprays, 
Or vine-wound, with bright grapes in panicles. 
Or bramble-tangled in a sweetest maze, 



k 



248 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

" Or lying like young lilies in a lake 

About the great white Lotus of the moon, 
Or blown and drifted, as if winds should shake 
Star blossoms down from silver stems too soon, 

** Or budding thick about full open stars, 
Or clambering shyly up cloud-lattices, 
Or trampled pale in the red path of Mars, 
Or trim-set in quaint gardener's fantasies : 

** And long June night-sounds crooned among the leaves. 
And whispered confidence of dark and green, 
And murmurs in old moss about old eaves, 
And tinklings floating over water-sheen ! " 

Then he that wrote laid down his pen and sighed ; 

And straightway came old Scorn and Bitterness, 

Like Hunnish kings out of the barbarous land, 

And camped upon the transient Italy 

That he had dreamed to blossom in his soul. 

" I '11 date this dream, he said ; so : ' Given, thesCj 

On this, the coldest night in all the year. 

From this, the meanest garret in the world. 

In this, the greatest city in the land. 

To you, the richest folk this side of death. 

By one, the hungriest poet under heaven, 

— Writ while his candle sputtered in the gust, 

And while his last, last ember died of cold, 

And while the mortal ice i' the air made free 

Of all his bones and bit and shrunk his heart, 

And while soft Luxury made show to strike 

Her gloved hands together and to smile 

What time her weary feet unconsciously 

Trode wheels that lifted Avarice to power. 

— And while, moreover, — O thou God, thou God — 



JUNE DREAMS, IN JANUARY. 249 

His worshipful sweet wife sat still, afar, 

Within the village whence she sent him forth 

Into the town to make his name and fame, 

Waiting, all confident and proud and calm. 

Till he should make for her his name and fame. 

Waiting — O Christ, how keen this cuts ! — large-eyed, 

With Baby Charley till her husband make 

For her and him a poet's name and fame.' 

— Read me," he cried, and rose, and stamped his foot 

Impatiently at Heaven, " read me this," 

(Putting th' inquiry full in the face of God) 

" Why can we poets dream us beauty, so, 

But cannot dream us bread ■' Whv. now. can I 

Make, aye, create this fervid throbbing June 

Out of the chill, chill matter of my soul, 

Yet cannot make a poorest penny-loaf 

Out of this same chill matter, no, not one 

For Mary though she starved upon my breast ? " 

And then he fell upon his couch, and sobbed, 
And, late, just when his heart leaned o'er 
The very edge of breaking, fain to fall, 
God sent him sleep. 

There came his room-fellow, 
Stout Dick, the painter, saw the written dream. 
Read, scratched his curly pate, smiled, winked, fell on 
The poem in big-hearted comic rage, 
Quick folded, thrust in envelope, addressed 
To him, the critic-god, that sitteth grim 
And giant-grisly on the stone causeway 
That leadeth to his magazine and fame. 

Him, by due mail, the little Dream of June 
Encountered growling, and at unawares 
Stole in upon his poem-battered soul 
So that he smiled, — then shook his head upon 't 
— Then growled, then smiled again, till at the last, 



250 UNREVISED EARLY POEMS. 

As one that deadly sinned against his will, 

He writ upon the margin of the Dream 

A wondrous, wondrous word that in a day 

Did turn the fleeting song to very bread, 

— Whereat Dick Painter leapt, the poet wept, 

And Mary slept with happy drops a-gleam 

Upon long lashes of her serene eyes 

From twentieth reading of her poet's news 

Quick-sent, " O sweet my Sweet, to dream is power. 

And I can dream thee bread and dream thee wine, 

And I will dream thee robes and gems, dear Love, 

To clothe thy holy loveliness withal. 

And I will dream thee here to live by me, 

Thee and my little man thou hold'st at breast, 

— Come, Name, come, Fame, andkissmy Sweetheart's ieet 

Georgia, 1869. 



iMOTES 



NOTES. 



Sunrise, p. 3. 

Sunrise, Mr. Lanier"s latest completed poem, was written while his 
sun or me seemed fairly at the setting, and the hand which first pen- 
cilled its nnes had not strength to carry nourishment to the lips. 

The three Hymns of the Marshes which open this collection are the 
only written portions of a series of six Marsh Hymns that were designed 
by the author to form a separate volume. 

The Songoi'CnG Marshes, At Sunset, does not belong to this group, 
out is inserted among the Hvmns as forming a true accord with them 

The Marshes of Glynn, p. 14. 

The salt marshes of Glynn Cointy, Georgia, immediately around 
the sea-coast city of Brunswick- 

Clovvk, p. ig. 

Clover is placed as the initial poem of a volume which was left in 
orderly arrangement among the author's papers. His own grouping 
in that volume has been followed as far as possible in this fuller col- 
lection. 

Thk Mocking-Bird, p. 27. 
"... yon trim Shakespeare on the tree " 
leads back, almost twenty years from its writing, to the poet's college 
note-book where we find the boy reflecting: " A poet is the mocking 
bird of the spiritual universe. In him are collected all the individual 
songs of all individual natures." 

Corn, p. 53. 

Corn will hold a distinct interest for those who study the gathering 
forces in the .luthor's growth : for it was the first outcome of his con- 
sciously-developing art-life. This life, the musician's and poet's, he 
entered upon — after years of patient denial antl suppression — in Se(> 
tembpr. 1873, uncertain of his powers but determined to give them win» 



2 54 NOTES. 

His " fieldward-faring eyes took harvest " " among the stately corn- 
*anks," in a portion of middle Georgia sixty miles to the north of Ma- 
con. It is a high tract of country from which one looks across the 
lower reaches to the distant Blue Ridge mountains, whose wholesome 
breath, all unobstructed, here blends with the woods-odors of the beech, 
the hickory and the muscadine : a part of a range recalled elsewhere 
by Mr. Lanier, as " that ample stretch of generous soil, where the Ap- 
palachian ruggednesses calm themselves into pleasant hills before 
dying quite away into the sea-board levels " — where " a man can find 
such temperances of heaven and earth — enough of struggle with nature 
Ko draw out manhood, with enough of bounty to sanction the struggle 
— that a more exquisite co-adaptation of all blessed circumstances for 
man's life need not be sought." 

My Springs, p. 71. * 

Of this newly-written poem Mr. Lanier says in a letter of March. 
1874 : " Of course, since I have written it to print I cannot make it 
such as /desire in artistic design: for the forms of to-day require a 
certain trim smugness and clean-shaven propriety in the face and dress 
of a poem, and I must win a hearing by conforming in some degree to 
these tyrannies, with a view to overturning them in the future. Writ- 
ten so, it is not nearly so beautiful as I would have it ; and I therefore 
have another still in my heart, which I will some day write for myself." 

A Song of Love, p. 97. 

A Son^ of Love, like Betrayal^ belongs to the early plan of The "jfac- 
querie. It was written for one of the Fool's songs and, after several 
recastings, took its present shape in 1879. 

To Nannkttb Falk-Auerbach, p. 102. 

This sonnet was originally written in the German and published in a 
German daily of Baltimore, while the author's translation appeared 
at the same time in the Baltimore Gazette. 

To Our Mocking-Bird, p. 103. 
The history of this bird's life is given at length under the title o\. 
" Bob," in The Independent of August 3, 1882, and will show that 
he deserved to be immortal — as we hope he is. 

Ode to the Johns Hopkins University, p. 108. 
"... the soaring genius'd Sylvester 
That earlier loosed the knot great Newton tied," 
An algebraic theorem announced by Newton was demonstrated and 
extended by Sylvester. — Sidney Lanier. 



NOTES. 255 

A Ballad of Trees and thb Master, p. 141. 

A Ballad of Trees and the Master ^zs> conceived as an interlude ol 
the latest Hymn of the Marshes, Sunrise, although written earlier. In 
the author's first copy and first revision of that Hymn^ the. Ballad was 
incorporated, following the invocation to the trees which closes with : 
" And there, oh there 
As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air, 
Pray me a myriad prayer." 
In iMr. Lanier's final copy the Ballad is omitted. It was one of scv 
eral interludes which he at first designed, but, for some reason, after- 
wards abandoned. 

To My Class, p. 146. 

A class in English Literature, composed of young girls who had been 
studying with Mr. Lanier The Knighte' s Tale of Chaucer. 

The sonnet On Violet's Wafers was addressed to a member of the 
same class, and is similarly conceived. 

Under the Ckdarcroft Chestnut, p. 149 

" This chestnut-tree (at Cedarcroft, the estate of Mr. Bayard Taylor, 
in Pennsylvania), is estimated to be more than eight hundred years 
old." — Sidney Lanier, 1877. 

Hard by stood its mate, apparently somewhat younger. It is related 
in a letter of 1882, from Mrs. Taylor, that in 1880, a year after Mr. 
Taylor's death, one of these majestic trees gave the first signs of de- 
cay : while his comrade lingered two years longer — to follow as closely 
the footsteps of Mr. Lanier : the two, faithful-hearted " to their master 
and to him who sang of them." 

A Florida Ghost, p. 171. 
The incidents recorded of this storm are matter of history in and 
around Tampa. 

Nine from Eight, p. 177. 

The local expression " under the hack " is kindly explained by an 
authority in middle Georgia dialect, Richard Malcolm Johnston, author 
of The Dukcsborough Tales and other Georgia stories. He says : 

" ' Under the hack' is a well-known phrase among the country-peo- 
ple, and is applied, generally in a humorous sense, to those who have 
been cowed by any accident. A man who is overruled by his wife, J 
have often heard described as ' under the hack ' : ' She's got him under 
the hack.' So, when a man has lost spirit from any cause, he is said 
to be ' under the hack.' The phrase is possibly derived from ' hackle,' 
an instrument used in the breaking of flax." 



2S6 NOTES. 

" Thar's more in the Man," etc., p. i8o. 

"Jones " designates Jones County, Ga. , one of the counties adioin. 
ing Bibb County, in Which Macon is located. 

The Jacquerie, p. 191. 

Although The yacquerie remained a fragment for thirteen years Mr, 
Lanier's interest in the subject never abated. Far on in this interval 
he is found planning for leisure to work out in romance the story of 
that savage msurrection of the French peasantry, which the Chronicles 
of Froissart had impressed upon his boyish imagination. 

To , p. 230. 

The era of verse-writing with Mr. Lanier reopens in this dream of 
the Vir^jinia bay where poet's reveries and war's awakenings continu- 
ally alternated. 

He presents it for a friend's criticism — at the age of twenty-one — in 
these words : " 1 send you a little poem which sang itself through me 
the other day. *Tis the first I've written in many years." 

Night, p. 240. 

This poem was /lot published by the writer and the simile of the 
second verse was appropriated to An Evening Song. This partial rep- 
etition — like that of portions of Tke Tournament and of A Dream of 
yune, which occur in the Psalm of the West — will be pardoned as af- 
fording a favorable opportunity to observe Mr. Lanier's growth in 
artistic form 



THE CENTENNIAL CANTATA 



THE CENTENNIAL MEDITATION OF 
COLUMBIA. 

1 776- 1 876. 



A CANTATA. 

From this hundred-terraced height, 
Sight more large with nobler light 
Ranges down yon towering years. 
Humbler smiles and lordlier tears 

Shipe and fall, shine and fall, 
While old voices rise and call 
Yonder where the to-and-fro 
Weltering of my Long-Ago 
Moves about the moveless base 
Far below my resting-place. 

Mayflower, Mayflower, slowly hither flying, 
Trembling westward o'er yon balking sea, 
Hearts within Farewell dear England sighing, 
Winds without Buf dear in vain replying, 
Gray-lipp'd waves about thee shouted, crying 
"No! It shall not be ! " 

Jamestown, out of thee — 
Plymouth, thee —thee, Albany — 
Winter cries. Ye freeze: away! 
Fever cries. Ye burn : away! 
Hunger cries, Ye starve : away ! 
Vengeance cries, Your graves shall stay ! 



MiisicalAn 
notations. 
Fultclwrus: 
sober, mens- 
uyfdandyel 

majestic 
progressions 

0/ chords. 



Chorus ; 

the sea and 

the 7iiinds 

mingling 

their voices 

luith li untaH 

sighs. 



Quartette: 

a meagre 

anddesfiair 

ing minor. 



26o 



THE CENTENNIAL CANTATA. 



Fullchorus: 
return of 

the motive of 
the second 
movement, 

hut ivorked 
up tvith 
greater 

fury, to the 
climax of 

the shout at 

the last line. 



Then old Shapes and Masks of Things, 
Framed like Faiths or clothed like Kings 
Ghosts of Goods once fleshed and fair, 
Grown foul Bads in alien air — 
War, and his most noisy lords, 
Tongued with lithe and poisoned swords-~ 
Error, Terror, Rage and Crime, 
All in a windy night of time 
Cried to me from land and sea, 

No ! Thou shalt not be ! 



A rapid 

and intense 

tvhisper- 

chorus. 



Hark! 

Huguenots whispering ^^a in the dark, 
Puritans answering ^^a in the dark ! 
Yea like an arrow shot true to his mark, 
Darts through the tyrannous heart of Denial. 
Patience and Labor and solemn-souled Trial, 

Foiled, still beginning, 

Soiled, but not sinning, 
Toil through the stertorous death of the Night, 
Toil when wild brother-wars new-dark the Light, 
Toil, and forgive, and kiss o'er, and replight. 



Chorus of 
jubilation, 
until the ap- 
peal of the 

last tiiio 
lines intro- 
duces a tone 
of doubt : it 
then sinks to 

pianissimo. 



Now Praise to God's oft-granted grace, 
Now Praise to Man's undaunted face, 
Despite the land, despite the sea, 
I was : I am : and I shall be — 
How long. Good Angel, O how long ? 
Sing me from Heaven a man's own song I 



Basso solo: " Long as thine Art shall love true love, 

the good An- 
gel replies: Long as thy Science truth shall know. 

Long as thine Eagle harms no Dove, 

Long as thy Law by law shall grow. 



CENTENNIAL MEDITATION OF COLUMBIA^, 26 1 

Long as thy God is God above, 

Thy brother every man below, 

So long, dear Land of all my love, 

Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow ! " 

O Music, from this height of time my Word un- FuU'chorus. 

jubilation 
fold : a>td 

In thy large signals all men's hearts Man's heart 

behold : 
Mid-heaven unroll thy chords as friendly flags 

unfurled, 
And wave the world's best lover's welcome to the 

world. 



welcotnt. 



NOTE TO THE CANTATA. 

The annotated musical directions which here accompany The Can- 
tata, arranged for the composer's use, were first sent with the newly- 
completed text in a private letter to Mr. Gibson Peacock, of Phila- 
delphia. 

I am enabled to give these annotations and the author's own introduc- 
tion to his work through the kindness of Mr. Peacock : the friend who, 
while yet an entire stranger, awakened and led the public recognition 
of Mr. Lanier's place in the world of art. M. D. L. 

" Baltimore, January 18, 1876. 
"... The enclosed will show you partly what I have been 
doing. . . . The Centennial Commission has invited me to write 
a poem which shall serve as the text for a Cantata (the music to be by 
Dudley Buck, of New York), to be sung at the opening of the E.xhibi- 
tion, under Thomas' direction. . . . I've written the enclosed. 
Necessarily I had to think out the musical conceptions as well as the 
poem, and I have briefly indicated these along tlie margin of each 
movement. I have tried to make the whole as simple and as candid as 
a melody of Beethoven's : at the same time expressing the largest 



262 THE CENTENNIAL CANTATA. 

ideas possible, and expressing them in such a way as could not be of- 
fensive to any modern soul. I particularly hope you'll like the Angel's 
song, where I have endeavored to convey, in one line each, the phi- 
losophies of Art, of Science, of Power, of Government, of Faith, and oi 
Social Life. Of course 1 shall not expect that this will instantly appeal 
to tastes peppered and salted by [certain of our contemporary writers] ; 
but one cannot forget Beethoven, and somehow all my inspiration 
came in these large and artless forms, in simple Saxon words, in un- 
pretentious and purely intellectual conceptions, whi'e nevertheless I 
»'elt, all through, the necessity of making a genuine song — and not a 
rhymed set of good adages — out of it. I adopted the trochees of the 
first movement because they compel & measured, sober, and meditative 
movement of the mind; and because, too, they are not the genius of 
our language. When the troubles cease, and the land emerges as a 
distinct unity, then I fall into our native iambics. . . ." 

" Baltimore, January 25, 1876. 

"My Dkar Friknd : — Your praise, and your wife's, give me a world 
of comfort. I really do not believe anything was ever written under 
an equal number of limitations ; and when I first came to know all the 
conditions of the poem I was for a moment inclined to think that no 
genuine work could be produced under them. 

"As for the friend who was the cause of the compliment, it was, di- 
rectly, Mr. Taylor. . . . Indirectly, you are largely concerned ib 
it. ... I fancy [all] this must have been owing much to the repu- 
tation which you set a-roiling so recently. . . , 

' ' So, God bless you both. 

" Your friend» S, L." 



31+77-9 



> 



